


DNA

by badluckvixen13 (alteringviews)



Series: Media Series [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Hale Fire, Alternate Universe, BAMF Derek, BAMF Stiles, But He Gets Better, Claudia Stilinski Memories, Conspiracy, Dark Stiles, Derek Gets Therapy, Derek Needs Therapy, Derek's Life Is Hard, Discrimination, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Nogitsune Trauma, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Psycho Kate, Psychological Torture, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Scott is a Good Friend, Sexual Abuse, Sheriff Stilinski is a Bad Parent, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Top Derek Hale/Bottom Stiles Stilinski, True Alpha Derek Hale, Werewolf Discrimination
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-11 08:35:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 28
Words: 127,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5620393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alteringviews/pseuds/badluckvixen13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Centuries ago, the Alliance gained control of the majority of the free world. The rest of the world, the Frontier, are the magical wastelands where criminals hide and dark secrets are lost and the pre-Alliance divisions remain. To foster a sense of allegiance, peace, and progression toward human and supernatural equality, the Alliance created the Handler-Shifter system to enforce supernatural law on behalf of humans and supernaturals alike. </p><p>For a better alliance, Stiles enters the service just like his parents before him. For the sake of Pack, Derek returns to the Alliance and finds himself partnered with a smart-mouthed, pale, kid who has seen more darkness than most people his age. Together with Scott and Kira, they find themselves standing on the edge of a revolution thousands of years in the making with only one question to answer:</p><p>Are they strong enough?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Intro

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> This one isn't co-authored at all so... it's going to be a little different... namely longer than The Masks We Wear.

Story Inspired by:

Stiles/Derek ~ DNA: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imqeSytEV48>

(It's a great video)

 A self-created challenge

And the picture below:

 

Chapter Name Poem (In Case You're Interested):

When you least expect it, he passes all the tests. Only natural: the color of his eyes, not hard to understand. In every way, the X to his Y—science can’t explain simple genetics. So familiar, the blue in his eyes—a different strain made from the best. Energy connects—heart beating fast:  cardiac arrest, when he kisses your neck. No first degree, scientist, or biology, if I can’t feel him in my veins—leave me covered for days, in his DNA, in his face.

Fingerprints that tell you he loves you—no need to question. When he’s holding me, I already know, what he does to me; takes my breath away, nothing more to say. I’m so affected, no need to work it out. Contaminates my lips, all about his kiss—see the future, so familiar—it’s all us.

Holding me, do no wrong. My heart won’t beat again. Flutter your heart. Don’t need to try. Feel it every day. What makes a man perfect in every way?

That’s how he’s made.

 


	2. When You Least Expect It, He Passes All the Tests.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introduction to the world, lacrosse and essay writing

He remembered what it was like to sit on the bench and watch the first string play. He’d lick his lips and rest his chin in the space between his thumb and first finger as he watched. His tongue on the edge of his mouth and thoughtful. Coach had always been terrible at designing plays and Scott, after he’d grown into his Lycan self (and all the drama that ensued afterwards) had been a monster on the field. Stiles watched his best friend grow stronger, faster while he sat on the sidelines. Half-unsure if it was a good idea to use his Lycan strength in this way and maybe just a tad jealous. But Stiles, never one to give up, worked himself half to death training with Scott over the summers to be good enough to make first string and even harder with Coach to make better plays.

“What do you know about plays Stilinski?”

Stiles promptly lay out the full docket of Finstock’s plays and how they always failed or barely got by on their luck. That had been sophomore year, his second year on the team. After that, Finstock was content to sit next to him during games and ask Stiles about the plays he’d planned. Always derisive, but he usually took Stiles advice without thanking him.

It took nearly three years, but Coach Finstock finally recognized his scheming talents this year, the year that they really had a chance for the championship. Finally, in his senior year, he made first string after subbing in and executing a play that they’d been working on. Sure, he wasn't the best player, but he made the best defensive strategist even when their offense wasn't up to par. They'd fended off a full Lycan team during the semi-finals with what Coach affectionately called the “Stilinski-Lycan MindFuck.” And today, he’d proved himself an invaluable member of the team on and off the field as it was Stiles that had scored the final goal of the game and brought them into final match of the championships.

He wanted to tell his Dad that, but it wouldn’t have mattered as he barely saw the man nowadays. Agents sent out by the Alliance were investigating something serious that required the Sheriff’s attention and cooperation. He’d figured, without any delay or consideration, that his now high school senior, fifteen year old, son could handle being left alone in the house. Stiles wasn’t really sure when the Sheriff would realize that maybe, just maybe, he wasn’t ten years old anymore and he’d been leaving Stiles in the house by himself since he was a three years old without problem. Or maybe he’d always known that it was fine and just needed a reason beyond himself to escape looking at Stiles everyday. Stiles, after all, looked just like Claudia Stilinski down to the moles on his cheek.

In any case, there was just one more game until they could proudly take the championship trophy home. His father would miss that one too probably. Nothing surprising, after all it had been Claudia Stilinski who'd gone to all the games and taken all the pictures. It had been Claudia Stilinski who he'd always been closest to. With her gone, the only warmth he really ever felt was from the roar of the crowd that had only just started to cheer for him as well. Melissa would come sometimes and that would just have to be enough.

After a celebratory visit to the McCall House to recap the game to Melissa and bask in a bit of parental affection, he got back later than usual. His Dad was gone to the station again and had missed the epic defeat of the North Californian Titans at the claws of the Beacon Hills Wolves and the even more epic recap by Stiles and Scott and again by Stiles to the image of Claudia Stilinski on the mantle, the picture he only placed there when he was alone. It was the only picture he had left of her, a half crumpled picture of her in her Handler gear, gun at her waist, coffee-whiskey eyes grinning at the camera. Her hair was cut short in the picture and it was one taken when she’d found out she was pregnant. It was a candid photo her spritely were-dragon partner had taken and given to him at the funeral. He smiled up at her picture as he sunk on to the couch with a sigh after explaining the last adrenaline filled seconds of the game and ran his hand across his short cut hair.

“We won, Mom and we’re going to take the championship too. And I’m going to get into the academy, just like you and Dad.”

A part of him knew that she probably couldn’t hear him, but it hadn’t mattered. Just that he’d said it and for a little while could pretend that she could. The kitchen was empty, the few left overs in the fridge had been taken with the Sheriff to work, forcing Stiles to make dinner. He settled for a steak, some potatoes, and a salad, leaving the leftovers in the fridge for the Sheriff before heading upstairs to his room. The next day was Saturday meaning afternoon lacrosse practice and no school.

The loom of the academy application was now the only thing to occupy his mind for the next few hours between dinner and sleep.

His mother had been a Handler before she died and his father had been a Handler when he was younger, but an injury and Stiles’s mother’s death had taken him out of the force permanently and put him somewhere a little closer to home. After all, a ten year old with severe A.D.D. couldn’t be expected to take care of himself for weeks at a time when his father was away on Alliance business.

At least that had been the thought behind it, until the Sheriff realized that he didn’t have a choice and even without Adderall Stiles wasn’t a destructive kid. He made a lot of food, read a lot of books, ran around the house, cleaned and all that, but he didn’t destroy things. Though obviously challenged in the attention department, the Sheriff had left Stiles’s to his own devices and left the challenge of carrying the household duties and the festering grief on his own. That was the dynamic they'd grown into in the years since Claudia’s death.

Stiles settled down at his laptop and cut into the steak. After a few moments of music and peace, he logged on to the Academy’s website and began his application. It was due by the end of the semester and the application had only just become available. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he would get in since he was so young, but he was eligible to apply so he was going to apply. He came from two decorated Handlers after all and his mother's side were well known in the supernatural community. As much of a fuck up as he was, they had to at least see potential in him.

_Why should you be accepted into the Alliance Academy? Please speak to your view of the academy, its goals, and how you plan to contribute to the Alliance’s mission._

It wasn’t exactly the prompt he was hoping for, and it sure as hell wouldn’t be easy to write, so he went to do some research on the Academy, what the Alliance did, and life after the Academy. Considering that he'd  been at the table with his parents for almost every case after he was born and had met Jayden, Claudia's partner and Max, a Lycan and John's partner, he was pretty steeped in the Alliance’s mission, but just in case they'd changed...

According to the website, the Alliance began after the Fifth Lycan War due to a truce between the Lycan elders, who’d led the supernaturals against humans, and the United Nations. That had been in 3959 and relationship between humans and the supernatural had slowly begun getting better. The Alliance’s sole mission was to foster good relationships between humans and the supernaturals through cooperation to defend the territories of every nation against rogue supernatural and human threats. The greatest supernatural threat currently was the Wastelands. Over the course of the war, enough supernaturals had been slaughtere,d enough free-floating and angry magic had been summoned and created large patches of land filled with poltergeists and dark spirits. They’d been trying to exorcise those territories for centuries and had made little headway on that front.

The first all supernatural regiment in the military was created in 3972 and as more regiments were added to each branch of military in every country, the number of human casualties as a result of misfires, friendly fires, and surprise attacks had reduced significantly. Terrorist attacks armed with purely human weapons reduced even more and eventually the bad guys stepped up their game and began employing the supernatural as well. Those on the other side were usually rogue, wronged by the system in some way, or generally out for chaos.

They employed all manner of supernaturals for a myriad of things, but shifters such as Lycans were generally employed as agents to be partnered with a human agent called a Handler. Most people took offense to that term, but there was so little that could be done with it with the way Lycan Rights had been going. They were still treated like animals and killed like animals in some places. And it had only been two years since the Lycan marker had been cut from international law and Lycans saw a but more equality. He remembered staging at least ten protests that semester and even more that summer...for Scott and every other Lycan he knew.

There was so little advancement as Lycans were known most prominently for ripping humans to shreds during the wars. Heads on pikes, entrails strewn about, most people, even Handlers, saw them as less than human. The Lycan Elders had done very little to relieve that, but as they had their hands tied with staving off the extinction of their species and protecting the rest of the supernatural world, it seemed to be a small price to pay.

Maybe it was a high school reflex, or he’d spent too much time with Scott, but his first stop was Inquiry-it and searched for Silver Bullets, then Lycan only to be corrected  to "lycaon” and taken to a site he was sure wasn’t sanctioned by the academy or the Lycan Elders. For one, Zeus in the story, as with all myths, went into overkill and the story didn’t make any sense from what he knew of Greek or Lycan mythology…

And he knew _a lot_ about mythology. His first few weeks on Adderall were spent in the school library in various sections and reading through every book there. His first section had been Ancient Myth and he’d spouted theories on anthropomorphic gods for at least three weeks after. It made him pass his history class easy… and made him a walking myth encyclopedia and nerd target of the week.

What did eating human meat have to do with the biological shifts on the cellular level of changing from human to half-wolf or even full wolf form? Metaphorically, Stiles could launch into a manifesto, but Lycans and the supernatural had stopped being metaphorical when the Prime Minister of Britain revealed himself to be married to a vampire princess on November 12, 2134. Either way, the fact was that all Lycans could go full wolf when they got old enough, pureblood Lycans shifted to full wolf as young as a few days old given the right circumstances--everyone knew that. Stiles was pretty sure that though chocked full of hormones, even human meat would have been worked out of the Lycan system based on their proven metabolic rate alone. He would know--he’d had to feed Scott for that month he’d run away from home and his mother. It meant no leftovers unless he was going to cook for a small battalion.

Thank the Gods that Scott and Melissa had reconciled. Stiles loved Scott to the ends of the earth and beyond, but broody, angsty, Lycan Scott was a challenge and no matter how resourceful Stiles could be, he had no wish to go through another week of four-hour runs in the forest with Scott chasing after him like a snack. Once had been enough.

The books he’d picked up from the library and the station the next day went into a little more depth, but as Stiles searched the internet he wasn’t completely sure what he was looking for anymore…

He now had an extensive knowledge of the biological and spiritual processes by which Lycans shifted, but he still didn’t have an answer for the prompt really and he had an hour before he had to go pick up Scott for lacrosse practice. So rather than fill his brain with anymore information, he shook his head and took a seat against the wall. After just a moment, he hit his head on it, bit his lip for just a moment and retreated to the place where he thought clearly. His eyes cast upward, into the ceiling, and then beyond. It was where he could feel the Adderall kicking in and leveling out so that he didn’t just focus on one spot on the wall, but could organize his mind.

If anyone else was inside his mind, they would think he was crazy if only because information, sensory, factual, textual, and all the rest, whirled and circled, drawing connections between each other in ways that he couldn’t always control but always had a logical pattern.

Rally.

Protest.

Strategist.

Equality Manifesto.

Lycan Elders.

Alliance Board.

Protest.

_For a better alliance..._

He opened his eyes and rolled to his feet, grabbing a sheet of paper to jot down the notes, the brain map, an outline and Scott's name in the center. By the time he'd mapped it all out, it was time to go, so he left the page there and lifted his practice bag from the floor.

Scott climbed into his car with the same smile and Melissa was at the door waving him off.

"Afternoon," Stiles greeted as Scott handed over a bag of baked goods.

"Mom says eat and thank you."

Stiles shook his head, they were brothers in all the important ways, there was no need to thank him two years ago and even less of a need to thank him now. They survive that practice somehow and the ones leading up to the championship are more trying. He sees his Dad even less, gets his homework done faster and works on his essay piece by piece.

When it was time for the final match, he could only hear his heart beating too fast as they set up on the field and Stiles breathed. The game was hard. The other teams had more shifters, more experienced shifters, than the Wolves did and it seemed that they would get creamed for that simple fact. But Stiles had been watching the field and when they grouped together, a few minutes before the end of the game, still tied he told them the most insane plan he’d ever thought of.

“You’re insane, Stilinski,” Coach Finstock said. “But if we go into overtime we’ll get our assess handed to us. Follow Stilinski’s lead.”

He drew up the board quick, shooting out orders, directions and leaving the three starters, the three shifters to take care of the rest. It was a hard-core defense strategy that would leave Stiles at the goal facing the other team’s starters. The ultimate fake out and he focused on slowing his heart rate down, so calm, that it was almost silent.

They fanned out on the field and took a deep breath. It was dark, they’d turned the floodlights on the field and the seconds were ticking by. Just as he thought, the ball had gotten stolen and the shifter was charging towards him, barreling, fierce glowing yellow eyes and he held them as the other charged at him as Stiles spun his lacrosse stick and breathed deep. His heartbeat was so slow it felt as if he was sleeping and he spun the stick around in his hand, back and forth across his body.

He saw the moment that the other faltered and faked him out, drawing his attention to Stiles’s stick and ducked to send the were-lion flipping over his shoulder and the ball tumbled into his own net. He ran then before the other had even landed and he ran, the field was cleared, according to plan, and he felt the lion coming up behind him as he stepped and hurled the ball across the field. The were-lion dodged around him chasing after the ball, but it was too late. Someone intercepted him and Danny had snatched the ball from the air, swiveling to hurl it to Scott at the other end of the field.

Behind the helmet, he couldn’t even see very well but he didn’t need to see the sweep of Scott’s body as the ball went flying into the net. He only needed to hear the buzzer and watch their points go up. The roar of victory from Scott and the other shifters. That open mouth smile was kicking up again: fuck yes, they’d won the championship!

Their goalie rushed up behind him, past him towards the other edge of the field where the rest of the team was cheering and he sunk to his knees, taking it in. _It had worked…They'd won._

And he almost shrieked when they were barreling towards him and lifting him up. He flailed.

“Put me down!”

 

All that was left was to submit his academy application, hope he got selected for testing and prepare himself for the utter rejection that would come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feel free to comment, ask questions, all the good stuff. I'm getting better at responding.


	3. Only Natural: The Color Of His Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Derek meet

Generally, it takes two to three weeks to hear back about you application to the academy. Kira and Scott had gotten theirs back in two weeks and one day (and he only knows that because Scott had been counting). So when Stiles gets the email all of three days after he submits it, he figures it’s a rejection email.

He makes arrangements to have a small pity party with Scott before he opens the email and it reads, in possibly, the most prestigious looking font he’d ever seen:

_Mr. Stilinski,_

_I am pleased to inform you that you have passed the first stage of application into the Alliance Academy. Below are the available testing dates for the follow up tests that will serve as the final piece of your application. Please contact the Beacon Hills Alliance Embassy to make arrangements._

_We look forward to seeing your performance._

_Ambassador Deaton Emrys_

_First Stage Regulator_

“Scott…”

“It’s not that bad man, you can always apply again next --”

Stiles grabbed him and made him look at the screen, “Tell me I’m not dreaming.”

Scott lets out a happy howl and they bounce on the bed like children before standing and jumping up and down. John is home by then and comes up the stairs to figure out what exactly had they gotten into them only to see Scott and Stiles hugging and bouncing up and down like children.

“Do I want to know?” John asked.

“I made it to the second round!” Stiles almost screamed and lifted the laptop for him to see. “I made it!”

John frowned, when he’d applied there were letters, not emails, and everyone had to go to their local Alliance Embassy to get this kind of decision.  Apparently, they were getting more flexible with timing.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” John said, looking at the list of tests. It seemed extreme for--

“What did you apply for?”

“Handler training,” Stiles said easily and he felt his father stiffen and then look at him.

Scott winced and knew when a Stilinski argument was about to happen, so he bowed out of the room with a thumbs up and congratulations and headed home. John set the laptop down.

“You applied to be a Handler? You didn’t even bother to ask me?”

Stiles blinked, “When was I supposed to?”

John’s jaw tightened, “Stiles don’t be a smart ass.”

“I told you that I was going to apply and you said, and I quote, “go ahead and when you come to your senses, there will still be space at the station for a good page”.”

“For all your sarcasm, you couldn’t figure that out?”

Stiles’s lips tightened and John swallowed, when had he begun to look so much like her that even his mannerisms were bleeding into his memories of Claudia.

“Why are you so against this?”

“Because I know how sensitive you are,” he said. “You wouldn’t make it as a Handler.”

Stiles swallowed, “I won’t know until I try now will I?”

John shook his head and threw up his hands, “Fine. Do what you want. Just turn in your application to the police department as well if you aren’t applying to college.”

“I did,” Stiles said, flipping the email page to show him all of his application confirmations.

He would never say that Stiles wasn’t thorough, with any luck someone would take his headstrong, distractible son.

“Have you eaten?” Stiles asked. “Taken your meds?”

John winced, “I was on my way to.”

“Good,” Stiles said. “Good thing I picked up your prescription, huh?”

He winced at that and conceded the fact that he’d lost that argument at least and headed downstairs. Stiles followed him and made him a rounded plate.

“When’s lacrosse season over?”

“It ended three days ago, we won the championship.”

John looked up at him, “That’s… great. I didn’t know you’d made it to the championship.”

Stiles shrugged, he wanted to say that he never asked, but the Sheriff didn’t ask about many things when it came to Stiles. He heads back upstairs to study for finals and says he’ll wash dishes before he goes to bed. When he gets to school on Monday, he’s asking Kira what all the tests are for, but as she and Scott were in the bridge program, their testing was far different and she couldn’t give him much. He scoured the internet in between studying for his finals and dealing with the counselors who are urging him to write a speech for graduation. He declines and tells them to let Lydia write the speech and give it.

They oblige begrudgingly and leave him be as finals begin and end in a flash and he schedules his assessments for a week after graduation. The battery of tests consisted of a week at the academy to be tested throughout the entire week was as much as he got from the internet. They would test his magical knowledge, IQ, problem-solving skills, physical and spiritual aptitude. He wasn’t allowed to take any medications at least a week before the week began so they could test him in his natural state. He was infinitely glad that he’d opted out of giving a speech at graduation.

Lydia gave the speech and it was eloquent and perfect, all the things a valedictorian speech should have been. His father had been late, but gotten there in time to see him walk across the stage for his diploma.

“You’re off your meds,” John said when he met up with Stiles, Scott, and Melissa. His eyes were flickering around, unfocused and so damned distracted by everything.

Families greeted and hugged high school graduates, people chatted about life after. Coach Finstock was organizing a lacrosse picture and calling them over. Scott hustled him over, guiding him through the after party. He remembered that he’d opted out of prom since Scott and Kira were on duty that night and that left no one to really hang out with, but he did party with the two the night of graduation. As the designated driver, he was allowed to dance and eat and dance some more with them, but not drink and it was perfect. He couldn’t have thought of a better way to end senior year.

He still had a bit of time to accept the offers from colleges and asked for an extension so he could hear all of his options. Only one college granted him that extension and that was fine with him. Scott and Kira picked him up to take him to the embassy for testing as they were already heading in for training. He took a deep breath and walked in with them and they showed him where to go, who to check in with and he felt the beginnings of the rest of his life edging around him.

They did a full scan of him to make sure he was clean of any foreign substances and once he’d passed that, they ordered him to strip and dress in the academy issued clothing. When he was dressed in what Stiles knew to be a magic imaging suit, they showed him to the testing room.

The first was a paper test with questions that were far too complex to be answered by the average person. He wasn’t sure what came in more handy, his A.D.D., the years on Adderall or his only innate magical ability as the answers were coded in magic and once he’d figured out the code, he finished the test well within the allotted time. The next was a physical assessment in which they had everyone run through an obstacle course, entering about thirty seconds apart.

30 seconds was about the time for a spell to be reset for an average magical machine. Magical machines usually cast diagnostic spells, so obviously they were scanning each applicant before they let them enter the maze. No doubt it was a course set up to change and shift, maybe disguise the applicants and have them face off against one another. They said get through the course with no time limit and no other direction. Stiles wasn’t sure why that scared him but before it was his turn, he took the time to step up, he calmed his heart and let his mind run free, running its connections as it would to send him to where he was at peace in the middle of the chaos.

“Applicant 913, enter the course. Good luck.”

He stepped in and walked forward until he reached the door before him. He opened it to see another proctor and no other applicants. She blinked and scanned his suit before telling him to head towards the waiting room.

Perhaps he’d just been so inept that he’d been passed through the system, but there was something off about the room. His eyes flickered around it and to where the proctor had once been. The words on the board were just random symbols organized to resemble words. He was in a dream or someone was trying very hard to make him think he was in one. He felt something like a shiver and jumped before the ground crumbled beneath his feet and he gripped the light fixture. This wasn’t going to be easy.

What are the rules of reality?

***

Scott, Kira and Melissa are there when the doors open and people start filing out. They see hundreds of applications leaving, greeting their parents, yet Stiles does not appear. They wait in the foyer, pacing and worried.

“You think they’re still testing him?” Scott asked.

Kira shrugged, there was no way to be sure honestly. Others trickled out slowly, looking paler and paler, some were bruised and Kira wondered if maybe this had been a good idea at all. Their tests had been tough, but not that tough. They waited for three hours to the very end of the testing period when they had to let him go. The clock struck midnight of the final day when he was released. He appeared holding on to the wall for strength, stumbling in the clothes they’d dropped him off in. Coughing up blood, his face bruised, limping, stumbling, but he was conscious of them. Scott slung an arm around his waist and half carried him to the car as gingerly as possible.

Scott drove as Melissa checked his wounds and winced, he’d been beaten up pretty badly, but she couldn't tell by what.

“What happened to you?” Melissa whispered in horror. “And where the hell does the Alliance get off on doing this to children?”

They get Stiles to the hospital where they can actually run X-rays and check him properly. His arm is broken, his leg is splintered and he was in such a deep sleep, the doctors are tempted to call it a coma.

When he wakes up, Scott is at his bedside with John Stilinski pacing at the foot of his bed.

“You’re making me dizzy,” he gasped out through a dry throat.

John turned, walking quickly to his bed and taking his hand, “Damn it Stiles, you scared the hell out of us.”

“What happened dude? Our tests were pretty intense, but… we didn’t have to get hospitalized afterward.”

Stiles laughed, “Yeah… that hadn’t been part of the plan.”

He doesn’t tell them what happened or what the tests were like, only says that he’d gotten through them all and they said that the results would be announced in a week.

“Will you be able to walk by then?”

Stiles laughed, “I should be fine.”

And he was by midnight the next night, all of his injuries had vanished and Stiles wouldn’t say why either.

“Why not?”

“You’d ask more questions if I did.”

John swallowed, he recognized that sort of answer. Claudia had given him that answer when she’d come out of the testing looking much like Stiles had: beaten, battered… and it was all following the same pattern. What the hell were they testing his son for? What had they tested Claudia for? She’d never told him and it was a secret that she still held from the world he was sure… except maybe Lela, her partner in crime.

On the appointed day, Melissa and John take Stiles back to the embassy. Scott and Kira are already there and had taken their lunch break to be there for when Stiles gets out. Melissa walks in with him and John is still convinced that it won’t take long. He walks up the S through Z line and sees people receiving envelopes.

“Name,” the woman at the desk asks pleasantly.

“Stilinski,” he says with a swallow and an envelope appears in the magic circle on the counter. She smiles at him and tells him good luck before he steps away to rejoin Melissa, Scott and Kira. They walk to the car where John is waiting before Scott tells him to open it.

“I can’t take the suspense, it’s killing me.”

Stiles’s hands are trembling and he opens the envelope slowly to unfold the letter and read it outloud.

 _“_ Mr. Stilinski, on behalf of the Alliance Academy, we are pleased to announce your admission to the class of 4157 of the Alliance Academy’s Handler Program…”

John’s jaw dropped and Stiles is shaking as his eyes flicker across the page, re-reading the line over and over again.

“Well keep reading!” Scott said shoving him, “Don’t be mean!”

“Due to your aptitude test results, which are attached, you have been placed with the second year in Unit 2-D as your matriculating class. It is not typical, but given your potential and aptitude, the committee has decided that you would be well suited in a higher level. Please review and keep you test results and bring them with you to your first day in the Academy. Attached are all the supplemental forms and information you will need to formally enroll or decline the offer.

Again welcome to Alliance Academy.

Sincerely,

The Alliance Board of Admissions.”

Scott’s jaw dropped and they all stood in silence, 2-D was their unit number and he grinned, “Looks like even the Alliance knows that our bromance has to remain strong or the world will end.”

Stiles laughed, unable to hold it in and yelled up to the sky, “I’m in!”

When they get home, Melissa insists on making dinner as a treat for Stiles passing his tests and John takes a long while to just soak in the information. He was barely fifteen...wasn’t he? How could he be admitted into the Handler program? Let alone skipped up two years? What was the alliance thinking? What had they tested him for? He would be the youngest Handler in history if he actually made it out in two years. What the hell would he even be allowed to do? He was barely allowed to drive! He didn’t even have a _license_ yet, but was driving around with a permit. What were they thinking?

***

Melissa did her best not to wonder why John was acting so strangely, but it was hard when the bright joy that had come over Stiles was quickly vanishing. Even Scott’s usually contagious smile wasn’t working and Kira had little to add once Stiles had sufficiently gotten beneath his sadness.

“What’s wrong, Stiles?”

“He can’t… even say congratulations.”

Melissa took a deep breath, “He’s an idiot.”

Stiles looked up at her kind smile.

“You’re going to be so awesome, his paltry record will be swept away into nothing and all he’ll be able to do is say... _that’s my son_ and bow before your greatness.”

Stiles felt himself chuckle at that. Melissa was always good for that, he’d always assumed that was where Scott got his magical ability to get people out of their slumps because Scott’s father was a total asshat.

“Now, celebrate!”

*

It’s the second time he’s woken up in a hospital and this time, it’s just Scott sitting at his bedside. He blinks slowly and looks at him, remembering pieces, fragments and Scott’s pained face. He looks perfectly fine now, but in his memory Scott is choking on pain and his hand is wrapped around Kira’s sword and twisting it in his gut.

Scott smiles a smile of relief.

“Stiles?”

He leans over the edge of his bed, despite the pain and empties his already empty stomach on to the floor beside the bed as Scott reaches over his head, rubbing his back and pressing the button above his head.

It’s twenty minutes before the door opens and it’s John, looking harried, in casual clothes. He looks like he hasn’t taken a shower in weeks. How long had Stiles been out? Blue eyes settle on Stiles and then he’s crossing the room and Stiles is wrapped in a tight hug.

“Stiles?” The voice in his ear. “Son?”

He nods slowly, breathing out a shuddering breath, “I’m here.”

John nods and squeezes him tighter.

They stay that way for at least half an hour before the representatives of the Alliance Academy arrive to perform an evaluation and take Stiles’s statement for the incident. He learns that the jumbled mess of memories is in the process of stitching itself together and there are at least four people that he’s directly responsible for killing.

“The Nogitsune is a tricky spirit, someone your age and at your level is lucky to have survived a possession that long and resisted it, let alone exorcise it. You shouldn’t feel guilty. They weren’t direct murders.”

He knows the words are a test, he knows that the woman sitting across the room is a were-lion listening to his pulse. He doesn’t have the heart to try and fake it, to control his reaction to the fact that it’s actually twenty people that were killed as a result of the possession and Scott could have been one of them.

“You’ll be on probation until the Alliance Board reaches a decision… get some rest and… for what’s it's worth…” He looks up at the man who nods at him and gives him what could possibly go down in the history book as the most seriously awed looks ever, “I don’t know anyone on the force that could have done what you did. You did well.”

The two leave and Melissa appears, for maybe the fifth time that hour, to tell him to rest. He’s just glad that his body was too exhausted to resist her words and the light sedative she injected him with.

In the end, the Alliance takes him off probation once his statement is verified and he is allowed to come back as soon as he’s physically able. The parents of the girl he saved hug and thank him. They give him a month to catch up on the work he’s missed including all the evaluations and Stiles finds that finishing it all keeps him from going to sleep, but not from remembering.

Today is his first official full day back. He’s in a blazer, t-shirt, and jeans running on four cups of coffee and thirty minutes of sleep. John still isn’t letting him drive, so he’s catching the bus from the police station. Melissa is planning a birthday celebration for him partially to celebrate his birthday and to celebrate his return to the academy. He’s trudging through the forest, when his senses pick up on something. Something interesting and he stops as a man comes through the woods. Wearing a black leather jacket, dark jeans and the expression of a serial killer, Stiles is almost on guard. Except the other has only glanced at him and stopped, regarding him from the distance.

“Hi,” Stiles greets, somewhere in between mesmerized and curious.

The man walks forward a bit, a slow prowl forward, still keeping his distance while regarding the kid that is watching him with eyes like whiskey and rich coffee.

He’s standing upwind from him so he can’t really smell him, but Derek bets he smells like the typical teenager encountered with a stranger in the woods: a little terrified. A buzz cut, a blazer, a t-shirt, jeans, and converse--the kid couldn’t have been more than sixteen years old with large coffee-whiskey brown eyes that were so open and innocent it made Derek’s stomach twist. His mouth slightly open, soft pink lips parted to reveal a pink tongue all frozen in shock maybe, or in something else.

“Is the Academy anywhere near here?” He asks and Derek stops again to point back the way he came from.

“That way,” he says.

“Thanks,” the boy says, his eyes darting up the path and then back to Derek’s form, his eyes taking him in.

It’s not sexual, just curious and oddly aware. Humans didn’t look at him like that, neither did other supernaturals... not since the lycan markers had been outlawed for civilians. Most people couldn’t tell the difference between a pixie and a Coyo.

“Who are you?” He asked.

“My name’s Derek.” He said, not completely sure why he'd stopped to humor the kid, but he continued to walk before agents from the alliance came after him for some other inane thing.

He’d gotten a few paces before the wind changed direction and he got blasted with the kid’s scent. He stopped again and turned. Derek wasn’t entirely sure what to call the scent beyond confused. Some hunters were like that… some humans were able to mask their scent or the character of their scents changed differently that the majority of the population. The kid could have also just been confused as to why he was turning to look at him once more. It was rare, but it usually made them terrific Handlers as it made them on closer to equal footing with their lycan, or any other animal shifter, partner.

The mouth worked to close for a second and swallow, “Stiles.”

Derek took one last look at the skinny stick of a teenager and turned back to head deeper into the woods towards the street that led towards the bus stop. But he could smell the soon-to-be Academy trainee even as he walked away. His scent haunted him with its innocuousness, but he trudged forward, not daring to look back. Kate’s scent had been innocuous too, and look where that had gotten him. He’d pass on any other Handlers no matter how nice they smelled. As he walked on, the sight of Stiles’s expression, breathless, in awe and curiosity haunted him. A human never looked at him like that because most couldn’t tell what he was just by looking, but that kid knew, meaning he was more than likely going into the academy when he was able if they had to drag him in or not. Derek knew first hand that the Alliance wasn’t above forcing people into service. His wolf growled, replaying the image of the pink lips that were parted and the wish to see them parted around something more than his own tongue.

 _Cut it out,_ Derek growled reigning those thoughts in.

He’d had enough the Alliance and the Academy and all things having to do with Handlers. After that asinine interview, nearly a year after Kate’s death, he’d lost more than just his faith in the system. _Post-Trauma Evaluation_ , _Follow-Up: bullshit._ There shouldn’t have even been a need for the “follow- up” if they’d just followed up then and didn’t try and pair him with yet another psycho.

The woman who’d interviewed him after he'd dragged Kate’s body out of the building, after Jennifer had been taken to the hospital, had been a human so terrified of him and steeped in perfume that she smelled more than atrocious. She sat in the interview room with him asking him the most idiotic questions in the history of Alliance interviews. The only thing that had kept him from storming out was the fact that they would just send someone to his house to collect him, and the fact that the Lycan Elders had taken the time to show up at the remains of the Hale house to tell him to cooperate and to move into somewhere a little less dreary. Apparently, it wasn’t good for his recovery to be so isolate in the memories of the past.

He’d wanted to tell them to fuck off, but had said nothing. He’d grown up considerably since the Hale Fire and Laura’s death. The fifteen year old would have barred his teeth and threatened to rip their throats out with his teeth while praying for death. Now twenty one, he just glared at them and remained exceedingly silent. It was mostly so his eyes wouldn’t flash blue, but either way he wasn’t threatening anyone.

Laura would have called it progress. Cora said frequently that he was just finding another way to deal with his grief, or rather not deal with it. He felt his lips twitch at the thought of his younger sister, off doing what she did best: art. And his younger cousin, Malia, off taking over the world literature with her acerbic wit and ballpoint pen. If they knew he was staying in the remains of the Hale House, they would have blown several blood vessels. Luckily for him, Cora was busy in France and Malia was stewing the black-bearing dreary droves of New York.

When he arrived at the charred structured, he thought oddly of the boy that had stared at him with such awe and curiosity. The boy with the whiskey-coffee eyes and wondered what he was heading to the academy for. He was obviously not old enough to be in training yet.

If he knew how wrong he was, he would have packed up and gone to find another place to live.


	4. Not Hard To Understand.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles and Derek meet again. Derek is just as charming as ever and the Alliance should be ashamed of themselves.
> 
> Stiles is not a killer.

It took three months before they contacted him again, now with more force. The first visit had ended with a glare at the woman who’d announced that he was requested at the Academy again. She’d been so afraid and creeped out by the remnants of the house that he hadn’t even had to let his wolf out to even _growl_ at her. They sent four more representatives over the next five months with increasingly longer and more urgent letters before they sent the police.

When it was Sheriff John Stilinski at his door with a pair of deputies, he knew that they were going to piss him off with whatever was so damned important that they couldn’t let him brood and mourn in peace.

“Am I under arrest?” Derek asked looking between the three as the Sheriff opened the scroll, an official summons.

“Yes.”

Derek nodded, they were definitely going to piss him off, so he let the deputy cuff him with human handcuffs and refused to do anything, but keep a blank expression. Sheriff Stilinski put a hand on his shoulder and steered him to the back of the squad car, closing the door after Derek had gotten in. When the door closed, he closed his eyes and did his best to calm his wolf who was itching to break the cuffs and shove them down someone’s throat.

 _Uira,_ he soothed. _Uira._

*

 

Stiles knew something was up when it was his father directing a man into the back of his squad car. It was the same lycan he’d met outside the Alliance station, so of course he had to investigate. For one, they were putting him in normal handcuffs which meant either his father didn’t know that “Derek” was a lycan or there was something else going on. Shifter handcuffs were made with a mountain ash and wolfsbane core that kept them actually imprisoned and were used for capturing shifter criminals. A lycan in human handcuffs was more for the illusion of control than anything, someone hadn’t been informed that their quarry was a lycan and he was surprised that his Dad couldn’t tell. But then his Dad had been a Handler in the time of lycan collars and shifter markers. There had been no need to know by sight alone who was shifter and who wasn’t.

“Stiles,” Sheriff Stilinski called out seeing him. “What are you doing out here?”

“I--”

“Never mind, get in and try not to piss him off.”

Stiles didn’t argue but climbed into the passenger seat and immediately turned around to look at the man in the back seat. Wearing a black shirt that stretched over his form, it wasn’t hard to tell that this man was at least an informally trained lycan, if not formally. He kept his heart calm, his eyes open and relaxed. He wasn’t a threat, nor was he merely curious.

“ _H’oqan_ ,” he started. _Hello again._

And the eyes beneath dark eyebrows opened and focused on him. They’d been closed, or at least downcast which meant he was listening beyond them or maybe just tuning out all of what was happening. Either way, he didn’t look happy that he was in handcuffs or that Stiles was talking to him at all. His eyes were the strangest shade of green he’d ever seen, or the most miraculous as they edged towards olive in the shadows cast by the hood of the patrol car and the firm line of his brow.

He felt his lips tremble, twitch, his mouth go dry and he had the odd urge to run, yet his heart remained calm and he waited until the lycan had done what he’d needed. His eyes boring into Stiles’s his breathing deep and calm. He was definitely taking stock of him and then he leaned forward, the edge of his expression seemed to lessen and his eyes grew more hazel as his face drew nearer to the gate to get a better look at the boy he’d met earlier in the year, long before the police had arrived at what used to be his house.

The word of greeting was a sharp prick in his ears and a stroke to his wolf, said perfectly it was an easy way to get his attention. The boy, _Stiles,_ had eyes somewhere between deep cinnamon and chocolate, yet they were tinged with something that Derek just couldn’t place. There was nothing telling in his scent. He was calm, open, he didn’t flinch as Derek looked him in the eyes. Interesting, and he continued to watch and monitor Stiles. His wolf peering into him and probing.

“Tell me,” he started. “How did you know?”

Stiles swallowed at the shift in his eye color. They weren’t hazel brown or green anymore but edging towards a strangely light olive color that Stiles could have mistaken for grey. Lycan eyes were far more expressive than humans, yet the shifts in colors were almost too subtle for anyone to really notice unless they were major. It’s what made him a special case, he was attuned to the shifts of magic in lycans and other supernaturals, which made him a bit of a commodity among the applying class.

"Your eyes..." he replied, slowly almost startled--confused. He swallowed almost nervously. Perhaps he’d offended him? "They change...and you move like a lycan."

He sat back slowly regarding the boy as Sheriff Stilinski got in the car and told "Stiles" to buckle up and try not to aggravate a suspect in custody. It was rare for a human to see the lycan eyes shift unless the shift was extreme, but even rarer to know the movements of a lycan as opposed to a were-dragon or just a highly trained human. That made Stiles interesting enough to continue to look at him.

Stiles’s scent was evocative of the Sheriff, so Derek supposed that he was his son, which would explain why the kid was allowed to ride in the car with him.

“What were you doing out here anyway?”

“Instructor Glades let us go early from the woods exercise, I was heading back.”

Glades was still instructing? When had she started teaching first years? He remembered when she’d had the highest disdain for first years. Perhaps Stiles was a special case. he’d been right in assuming that Stiles was a to-be-trainee.

The rest of the ride was filled with an odd silence as Derek’s wolf continued to prowl in the air just behind Stiles’s head, trying to get a read on him, but he couldn’t. Stiles climbed out before the Sheriff got out to let Derek out of the car and ushered him inside. He bid the Sheriff goodbye and nodded his head in that old familiar way.

“ _Aqou,_ ” he said just low enough that only Derek could hear him before turning and heading down the hall.

The Sheriff ushered him to the interview room that he hated, sat him in the chair and left. A few moments later Ambassador Deaton and the Regulator of the Handler program came in. She was just as snooty as ever and Derek watched them take the seats across the table from him. Special Agent Layla O’Reily was a bitch in six-inch stilettos. She’d been a Handler for a year before she skipped out and became a pencil pushing witch. He smiled at her, almost fondly at how much trouble he’d caused her over the years between his partner match ups (or mismatches rather) and his not so polite replies to the summons.

She dropped a stack of files on the table beside her with a loud _thunk!_ , it echoed and Derek just looked at it and then to her as she took her seat and waited.

“Do you have any idea what this is?”

“The number of men you’ve made run away screaming?” Derek asked. “I expected it to be a bigger stack—this must just be the current year.”

Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed, “Your case history, Agent Hale.”

“I’m not an agent anymore,” he reminded her, lounging in his chair with a militant laziness and a small smile. “I’m sure my resignation is at the top of the stack.”

“We never accepted it.”

Derek shook his head, “Now, now Layla, break-ups you can not accept but _resignations_ you have to. You have no legal ground to stand on and if you tried, you know I’d rip your throat out.”

Her lips twitch into an angry sneer.

His eyes narrowed, his teeth glinting in the light, “And enjoy it.”

Deaton shook his head, “Still as charming as ever I see.”

Derek directed his eyes to him, “What is this about?”

“Your cousin, Adam, was attacked this morning, put into a coma that they're sure he won't ever come out of.”

He felt his heart sink and the room shook a bit as his wolf howled in agony. Adam was a good agent, a good man, luckily his children were old enough to be alright, but he knew it would hurt them to the core. He also knew that the remnants of the Hale family would be gathering to put him to be with his mate and calling every expert they could to fix it. Yet another solid blow to break the Hale Pack just a little bit more.

“We haven't alerted his family yet and as he was the only Hale in the service, we have a problem.”

Derek stiffened. He knew the rules. The original members of the Alliance, the original packs that had been involved had pledged that at least one of their own would always serve so long as the line survived. It became a sort of draft from the older packs to show that they believed in the mission and weren’t planning a large scale rebellion. Skye Hale, his ancestor on his father’s side, had been a part of the original pact.

“The Ambassador believes you would be the best option,” Layla said. ”I, however, wanted to pull Cora, or James--”

Derek knew his eyes flashed bright gold and his fangs extended. He heard the strain of the metal handcuffs and she swallowed the rest of her statement.

“ _I would murder you._ ”

James was all of thirteen years old and Cora was not agent material. The problem with drafting shifters was that they had to be able to serve for 20 years and generally be at least sixteen when drafted except in drastic situations. He knew a lot of the Hales that were left weren’t options as they were involved in the government in other ways. Cora, James, and his younger distant cousins were the only remaining options besides himself.

“The Board has decided that while your time without a partner and the way your partnerships ended are reasons for caution, your track record makes you a perfect candidate. You would be brought back in and paired with a fresh graduate of the academy.”

He snorted, a fresh graduate? They were going to turn him into a mentor and give him someone completely useless and useless assignments to keep him out of trouble. He knew he’d rubbed the Board wrong because of his failed partnerships. After all, their matching system was the pride of the international Alliance world, yet _twice_ they’d fucked him over.

“Will you come back?”

He let out a breath. He may hate the alliance and the academy, but he loved what few family members he had left. They were all scattered across Beacon Hills as the Hales that had survived the Hale Fire were still very much wolves and needed to be together.

“Do I have a choice?” he broke the handcuffs then as Deaton slid the sheet forward with a pen.

He signed his name and felt like he was giving them his soul again and turned his hand over, “Where is it?”

“What?”

“The collar.”

Deaton shook his head, “The Alliance got rid of that law and the other shifter markers two years ago… A very _persistent_ and passionate high school student cause a bit of a ruckus about it and we were almost faced with a riot on our hands.”

He smirked, “Ah the youth.”

He’d have to meet this kid and thank him one day. Layla opened her briefcase and passed his old things back to him: his alliance badge, ID tags, and holster, even his old gun.

“We will contact you when we have a match for you. In the meantime, new agent orientation is in two weeks. You will be reevaluated.”

"I will tell them myself. Don't go near my family."

Layla wanted to say something but he fixed her with a glare and a pointed look at her throat.

_Your throat. My teeth._

Derek took the items with a heaviness resting on his chest before standing and pulling the cuffs off his wrists and dropping them on the ground. He clipped the badge to his belt and shrugged into the holster over his henley and slipped the long silver chain over his neck. He declined the offer of a ride and exited the front door. He wasn’t even a few paces out the door, before he was running, pissed off. He had two weeks of his freedom left it seemed before he was back in the bonds of the alliance and relatives to visit with news they wouldn't want to hear, but probably knew already. At least, Adam's mate, Emilia, would.

He runs to Adam’s house and knocks on the door. Emilia answers the door, sobbing and looking at him before she drops the napkin in her hand. A face like his father’s, his grandfather’s eyes and a presence like his mother: Derek, her husband’s youngest nephew was standing there looking… better. Better than the last time she’d seen him and that had been so long ago. There was still an air of misery hanging over his head, a dark edge to him that she couldn’t name, but he was no longer struggling to keep his head above the rising tide of sorrow.

“ _Derek?_ ”

He nods, “May I come in?”

She nods tearfully. He sees Kaila, an aunt, holding James in her arms with the fiercest look before she takes in his presence. Brooke, James’s mother is more than likely at work.

“Adam…”

Derek nodded, “I was just told.”

“They can’t take James--”

“They won’t,” Derek told Kaila, a hand on hers with a comforting smile. “They won’t take him… because they have me.”

Kaila’s eyes widened, finally registering he chain around his neck, the holster strapped across his chest. James looks at him from Kaila’s arms.

“But… Uncle Derek--”

Derek shook his head, “You’re too young and Cora wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t let them take either of you if I could solve the problem.”

Kaila squeezed his hand back as Emilia settles next to him, hugging him, scenting him and crying into his shoulder.

“You’re a good man,” Kaila said. “Your mother would be proud.”

“Thank you Derek…” Emilia whimpers into his shoulder.

He can only hold her, stroke her hair and tell her that it will get better with time, that she had to hope that there was some way to wake him up again. That she had to be strong and he would tell the kids. She shook her head at that.

“It’s my responsibility.”

Derek doesn’t leave the house and stays until long after Emilia tells her son and daughter, barely twelve and ten years old, that their father had been hospitalized that morning and all means to wake him up had failed. He stays for a few more days, until they get the official notification that he’d be discharged into their custody. Derek makes arrangements to have him cared for in a lycan hospice a couple of miles behind the hospital while Liam calls every druid and medical expert that he knows to get a second opinion. It’s another week before the entire family comes to stare into the bleak room, offer their condolences and support for Emilia and the kids who sit at Adam’s bedside, holding his hand, and to hug Derek.

“Your mother would be proud,” they said with that solemn voice.

He’d kept nothing from his family, even though he rarely saw them, they all kept in touch. Cora and Malia had forced him to stay with Kaila while they were in town, to be around the surviving Hale members before he had to go back into service. They took Emilia’s favorite picture of Adam and made a small memorial in the living room of her small, leased townhouse in hope that he would return to them and not be called home to Ravi.

As he looked around the room, he saw a pack, but not family. They were almost too distant, too migratory, too _weighed down_ by it all to do much more than embrace and be as close as they could for as long as they could. If Laura or Talia were alive, it would have broken their hearts to see the Hale family so out of sorts. It broke Derek’s heart and with him returning to service, he wasn’t sure how much longer before his name would be the one on the paperwork and they would be burying him, or permanently hospitalizing him. He shuddered to think who the Alliance would draft next…

When Cora and Malia had returned to school, Derek returned to the remains of the once grand Hale house and took a deep breath before calling the best contractor in Beacon Hills. It had to be done, for them and maybe, just a little, for himself too.

*

Stiles and Scott sat in Stiles’s room, as his roommate had gone home for the weekend and Kira was off in her sword class. They’d gotten together to work on their project for a class and their application for graduation. Scott had decided firmly that he was going to be an agent and crossed his fingers every day with hope that he would be paired with Kira.

Stiles knew he would be.

“Your energies are synced already, they’d be stupid not to.”

The prompt was even more vague than the prompt for admission:

_Why would you be a good Handler? Please speak to at least three tenants of Handler Conduct._

What kind of question was that? His scores weren’t enough? The fact that he’d made through the program wasn’t enough? He doubted he could put down that he’d been possessed by a dark kitsune spirit for nearly a year and still managed to survive… or maybe he could. How many graduation applicants could say that and that they were valedictorian of their graduating class despite the possession?

Oh that’s right… just him.

He shook his head and part of him just wanted to be a smart ass, but he knew that wouldn’t get him anywhere. They worked on their essays for the next few hours before arriving at stopping point and carrying on to their team project. They had been given a case file and were supposed to go through the steps, and give a presentation for what they believed to have happened. They had been given a true wrench in the case and Scott was sure that they were just fucking with them as there was no way that their case was commensurate with their level.

“We’ll make a crime board,” Stiles said. And they did on the large thumbtack board in Stiles’s bedroom. Scott sat back, handling him pieces of the case file as Stiles talked through the placement of each piece.

John walks up the stairs to see them pondering over the case as Stiles is drawing lines between pictures. He stands in the doorway, not making his presence known. The Academy barracks are usually open to visitors, being that Stiles was still a minor and would be for another year, John was allowed to visit whenever he pleased. He wasn’t sure why he was here today, if only to just check up on Stiles, but there he was… building a case board, talking through each scene, while Scott took notes, and gave his input.

It was the first time that he’d ever seen Stiles like this: focused and insightful. Not to say that Stiles wasn’t insightful, but this was different. It made him think of long late night hours with his partner, or watching Claudia and Jayden talk through a case.

“There’s a pattern,” Stiles said. “It’s ritualistic… there’s something with this…”

He fades off and grabs a marker, sliding the pictures, glancing between the board and the drawing he’s rendering.

Stiles stepped back, “Holy Hell…”

When he stepped back, John swallowed. It was a magic circle, what it meant he didn’t know but Scott slid to the pile of books and Stiles shook his head and opened a notebook.

“It’s a summoning circle...It’s a blood summoning--for a spirit…”

Stiles stared at is and took a breath, “There’s one more missing.”

“And… what happens if that one pops up?”

“Then the ritual starts.”

“Can you tell what kind of spirit?”

Stiles sunk into the chair and looked up at the board, “It’s not pretty....”

John steps in and the boys still haven’t acknowledged his presence yet, they’re probably used to people walking in out of the room, they’d left the door open after all.

“It’s like the holy ghost of demons, and they’ve got all the numbers right…”

After a closer look at the board, he knew the case and his mouth opened to say something, to stop them, but Stiles was talking again.

“Ready to open it?”

Scott nodded and he turned to grab the envelope on the desk, and opened it to scan over it.

“Stiles,” John spoke and his eyes flickered to him. His jaw was clenched and he took a breath. “Perhaps you shouldn’t…”

“Mom’s case was never solved…” Stiles said and Scott turned to look between the two.

“What’s going on?”

“This is my mother’s case… the last case she was working before she died. The case she became a part of.”

He pulled the picture of her dead body and added it to the board. Scott blinked. Stiles stared at it, fingers tracing over her pale face.

“Stiles maybe we should…”

He shook his head, “No.”

John didn’t move as Stiles stared at the board and breathed out.

“She wasn’t killed as part of the ritual...she’s not on the final piece…”

“How long could this matter?”

Stiles pointed to the difference in the crime scenes. The people prior to were slaughtered, yet their blood had not stained the ground. His mother’s crime scene had. It was a panicked cover up kill.

“She caught him,” he said. “She caught him and he killed her and tried to pass it off…”

Scott frowned, how the hell could he tell and John stayed quiet.

“The others were bonded spiritually to the spot, she was not… “

Scott didn’t like the way he was talking as he went back to the stack of files, searching for the statement he knew had to be there. The evidence they were allowed to have. Everyone’s cases had been unsolved, they weren’t supposed to actually solve it. They were just supposed to come up with theories… profile the perpetrator, but Stiles hadn’t been able to stop there when he the next piece of evidence was his mother’s death scene.

John stayed long enough to see who the boys were waiting on: Kira who was fresh from sword training and there to collect Scott for their rounds.

“Maybe we should talk to the professor about this?” Scott asked Stiles. “I mean, agents aren’t usually allowed to work cases that they have personal connections to.”

“They also aren’t usually given cases so recent either,” Stiles said. “This is a test.”

When Scott left, John kept silent as Stiles sat down and took a deep breath.

“You came to visit?”

“To check up on you… I can see that you’re busy.”

Stiles smiled, “Not too busy for dinner.”

John nodded slowly as Stiles closed his notes, set the case files up on the table beside the crime board and followed John out the door. He locks the door behind him and they don’t talk about the project. They talk about classes and graduation, they talk about the station and what’s new in John’s life. It’s stilted and awkward and feels like pulling teeth, but they grin and bear it until it’s time for Stiles to head back to the academy and continue with his project and application.

“Good Luck,” John tells him and Stiles can only nod.

He spends his spare time researching the academy archive, alliance records, and anything else he can possibly manage about this case. Filling his brain with dates and faces, names and scenes until he has an epiphany in the night before their presentation of their case findings. He drags Scott and Kira into his jeep and goes to Agent Hoechlin, the most bangable professor and the instructor for their case work course, to give him a run down.

Tyler Hoechlin lets them in, only partially asleep. His lover relaxing on the couch, Agent Dylan O’Brien, looks up at the trio.

“Is there something wrong, Stiles?” Tyler asks. “There has to be as you’re showing up at my house so late.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Really, I am, but it is important. Really important… like holy fuck important.”

He nods, Stiles, while attention challenged, was a promising student, so he sat down and watched Stiles pull up the map of the case he’d been given. It only came to his attention much later that Stiles’s mother, Agent Claudia Stilinski, had been in the case file and as Stiles and Scott had said nothing about it, he had no power to retract the case.

“It isn’t just one,” he said swallowing. “The case has been going on since the Alliance was created.”

Tyler blinked and could only listen to Stiles as he went through years of case history as dots on the map over the United States.

“The United States has the largest number of supernatural deaths as it’s the ground zero of the wars…”

As he talked through the rest of the cases of the supernaturals that had died all over the United States in conjunction with the ritualized deaths that had been added in the hundred years, Tyler felt his stomach drop.

“Dylan,” he said. “Call Diaz and Martin…”

Dylan was already up, getting dressed and continuing on before looking at Stiles.

“You’re certain…”

Stiles swallowed, “As certain as I can be… The last kill… the very last to complete the ritual… has to be here in Beacon Hills… at the Nemeton.”

“When?”

“Midnight.”

Tyler cursed and got up as Dylan threw his gun and badge at him and told them that Diaz and Martin would be on their way.

“Tell them to go to the Nemeton,” Tyler said and looked at the three. “You have the map, so you’ll have to come, just stay behind us and don’t get yourselves killed.”

They nodded and piled in to Tyler’s Jeep that streaked off towards the Academy and then north of it towards the Nemeton. He heard a roar coming up beside them and it was Diego Martin shifting to hop into the jeep.

“What the hell is going on? You know how late it is?”

Tyler nodded, he knew exactly how late it was and the fact that there was going to be a planetary alignment tonight and all hell would break loose if they didn’t get there in time. When first beams began to shoot up, Alexander slammed his foot on the gas.

“How do we stop it Stiles?”

“We have to throw the alignment off, there’s one more thing that has to be done. If we can cut the chanting and dislodge the spirits we’ll throw the ritual off and break the chain.”

“Ty’…” Dylan said pointing to the distance.

Diego shivered, he could hear the pained roars of were-lions in the fields, the ghost army was rising it seemed.

“How do we unbind them?”

“Put them to rest,” Stiles said, flipping through his books. “You’ll need a spark that can harmonize, a Druid, anyone that can act as a medium to unpin at least one spirit, the more the better.”

“Call everyone we know in the Beacon Hills area and get them to those sites, make sure they have protection and anything they need to undo this binding.”

Stiles knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, if only because they would have announced the spots cleansed when they’d cleansed them after they’d collected the evidence. He took the phone from Leon.

“--They’re cleansed!”

“They aren’t! Not until you remove purgatory’s anchor!”

The woman on the other end gasped and he heard her ordering people to move as fast as they could. The jeep hit a spirit and flipped, tumbling them all out with a roar as they swung. Kira drew her sword, Scott’s eyes glowed and he shifted to half wolf.

Tyler grabbed Stiles’s arms and hustled him forward, firing spirit rounds, “Diego give them a hand. Dyl’ with Elliot! We’re going ahead.”

The fearsome winged creature swooped down and shifted as he fell, breathing fire. Stiles guessed that was Elliot.

Derek was called from bed by the council as a protection detail for a spark that just happened to be in the area. The Druids were busy trying to calm the rising spirits and somehow he was the only one around that could help. The woman had dark hair and a wide smile, she looked more like a pixie than a spark but he didn’t say that. More importantly, she was leading him towards the place where a lycan had died. He knew it because the wolf spirits still prowled around the spot. The woman kneeled, her eyes glowing a bright gold as she smiled and watched the wolves prowl. There were too many to count, too many to know for sure which one was the reason for the purgatory anchor.

“They’re beautiful,” She said with a smile. “And so afraid.”

Derek said nothing, keeping his eyes open to the surrounding areas. There was something happening, stirring in the air as more spirit appeared all lycan. The ones he could see looked at him, prowling towards him with interest and circling him. He kept himself calm as possible as he felt them drifting around him, brushing up against his wolf and he felt his heart stutter.

_Ravi… Hale_

They were all Hale spirits… extending far beyond his time. Why were they gathered here? He heard a hissing sound as the spirits turned and roared at the oncoming threat before it could lurch at him. The spark was busy speaking softly to the smallest wolf cub there while Derek tangled with the thing that had come. The spirits growled, backing him in the fight as he wrestled the other to the ground and knocked the man out, locking his hands behind his back in mountain ash handcuffs.

The woman was singing, stroking the cub’s spirit as Derek continued to survey the area.

“Derek,” she said. “Come here for a moment.”

He walked towards her, the spirits following him before turning outward to watch the oncoming streets. He kneeled beside her to look at the cub. Her eyes were hollow in the way of spirits and she sat still looking at him with sad eyes.

“Do you recognize her?”

He swallowed, leaning forward to scent her, more for his wolf than anything, before drawing back at the rush of emotions and memories that assaulted him. A happy bright little girl, one Catherine Hale… He’d only met her once when she was a baby. He remembered her funeral without a body and how no one would talk about how she died. The spirits had felt her there, pinned there and had come to keep her company, to care for the lost little one. He should have expected that from the Hale Pack...even Adam's spirit was there as his body  lay sleeping in a hospice...

“Cathy…” he said gently, stroking her head. She snuffled and nudged his hand. “ _Ara tsδruδ’a...a’δ gouva…_ ”

_Sweet little one, help us..._

She yipped and stood on her tiny paws, “ _A’sa gal...ziu top Ravi._ ”

_Be strong. Go to the Pack._

She trembled and he scooped her up into his arms. She nuzzled against him.

“ _δ’a il_ δoi nava _…A’Ravi._ ”

_We will always be with you… You are Pack._

She whimpered and brushed her nuzzle against his cheek, “I wish I’d had more time to know you little one. _A’zilδo δoi nava_.”

_You are always remembered._

She huffed a little and he felt her curl up tighter and drift away into the last bits of moonlight to rejoin the spirits of the pack that were around them. The spot she’d been in glowed bright in a round magic rune before turning black and breaking apart.

Stiles felt the shockwave as the circle of casters stumbled, Alex raised his gun as the roar of the spirit world dulled and the sound of the seams of their reality eased back into the mystic quiet. The lights dimmed and the alignment passed. He let out a heavy breath as Leon and three other agent came with their guns and partners.

“Hands in the air!”

They ran, only to be tackled. The leader managed to break the circle and Stiles was after him, tackling him to the ground. The man growled at him, his eyes glowing as he swung at Stiles.

“You can’t stop me, I’ve killed agents before. You will be no different.”

Stiles felt the force exploding across his face and heard footsteps through the trees as he launched himself at the man, barreling down with as much force as he could manage behind his fists. They rolled until Stiles slammed the other’s head against a rock. Dazed and confused, the man looked up at him in horror.

“I killed you!”

Stiles felt it like a surge, this was the man that had killed his mother that night. And he felt his fists falling on the other’s face, over and over again until the man let out a strained gurgle and fell unconscious.

Scott heard the sickeningly wet sound of fist hitting jaw and bursting blood vessels and rushed forward to get to Stiles before he’d killed the man, but when he arrived. Stiles was still, breathing in ragged breaths and rolling the unconscious man over to cuff him. He stood over the body and turned to see Tyler and Scott behind him, staring in disbelief.

“What?”

It’s Tyler that speaks, “Didn’t know if you would…”

“Is he dead?”

“No,” Stiles said. “He’s just unconscious.”

Stiles blinked and realized that the throbbing in his hand was his pain and the throbbing in his chest was his heart. Adrenaline rushing through him and their expressions. They thought he would kill the man and Stiles, for a moment, felt that he would...

Scott pulled him in for a hug, “You alright, bro?”

He nodded and closed his eyes, “I’m not… a killer.”

Scott felt his breath stutter and he squeezed Stiles tightly, “No… you never were.”

Stiles feels tears on his head and knows that Scott is crying with relief and maybe Stiles has started to grieve and heal.

***

Derek suffers through the orientation with the freshly graduated agent class of shifters. The speech didn’t change much from when he first entered the force, but it’s changed enough that he’s not bored. For one it’s much nicer, and they aren’t given their compatibility results during the meeting--just a schedule and a room assignment number for the following week. Derek’s expects that this one won’t go well.

 

Graduation for the handlers looms in the distance and today, Stiles is coming to receive his final results from all his finals and to see if his application has been accepted. Scott was already in orientation as shifter orientation and results always came first.  He and Kira were left to join the mass of handler applicants type in their applicant ID on the spirit board. Their names, class rank, final scores, and their handler status would flash before them if they could only get to the front to type in their name. Kira goes first and is immediately given the answer:

 

Kira Yukimura

112 out of 3156

1850 out of 2150

Accepted: Handler 1-Sword

 

She squeals and hugs Stiles tightly, before another student shoves past demanding the chance to find their scores. Stiles recognizes him as the asshat that was in all of their classes, the one who was just _so superior_ because he came from a family of well-known Handlers.

Stiles hung back for a while until the frenzy had died down before approaching the board and typing in his last name.

 

“Stiles” Stilinski

(He really appreciated that they didn’t put his first name up there.)

1 out of 3156

2150 out of 2150

Accepted: Handler 1- Melee (Firearm)

 

Stiles swallows as the hush falls over the group of students and he turned from the spirit board, not even waiting for his information to disappear. Kira is gaping up at the board and then at him. His lips, contorting themselves into an open mouth smile and he grits his teeth, shaking his head against the scream of joy as the realization washes over him: he’s in.

Later that night, he and Scott drive his mother’s jeep out to the wilderness, to their special clearing. They only use flashlights and the light from the jeep before turning it off and laying back to stare up at the sky.

 

Stiles lays down in one of his many t-shirts that says something ridiculous in black and red letters and a jacket, but it’s the smile on his face and the pleased look as his eyes are closed that says something. His eyes are cast up and he speaks barely intelligible things in his sleepy, satisfied haze. Scott knows his bro has been awake for far too long.

“I’m a Handler,” he whispers, not to Scott, but to the atmosphere around them, the sky above them as they lay out in their quiet clearing to watch the stars twinkle.

Scott nodded, “She’d be proud.”  
He nodded, “Do you think… she’s at peace now?”

Scott took a deep breath, “I think so. You didn’t kill him.”

He nodded, no… he didn’t.

“All you have to do now is write your “I’m Number 1” Speech.”

Stiles winced at that, graduation was only two days away. _Shit._

***

Graduation is a slow affair. This time Melissa has dragged John away from the station and forced him to sit at the very front with her. They got there early enough to do so and Stiles, Scott and Kira are among the few students that have reserved front row seats. Melissa doesn’t tell him that though but readies her camera as the ceremony begins. John couldn’t see Stiles as they’d walked up and wondered if the other was just running late or not.

Ambassador Deaton and Special Agent O’Reily give the opening speeches and introductions before introducing the valedictorian.

“Please welcome, Stiles Stilinski.”

John is pretty sure his mouth is open in shock when cheers go up and his son shuffles on to the stage, nervously smiling to the crowd. His eyes find John and his cheeks redden as he clears his throat and begins to speak.

“William Shakespeare wrote that we know what we are, but know not what we may be…I never thought I would have a chance to disagree with a dead poet, but after my time at the Academy, I do. To know what you are is to limit yourself and maybe we may never know what we may be, but we can dream.”

John can’t believe he’s hearing this. His son… is giving a speech. Not just that, but he was the valedictorian with the stupid tassel hanging off the back of his head. He looks a tad tired as well, but his eyes are bright and alert and all the things that Stiles was in general.

“I can’t speak for everyone in attendance, but when I filled out that alliance academy application, I was fumbling around for what I was, who I was, just to answer _Why should you be accepted into the Alliance Academy?_ I couldn’t have been the only one thinking… that’s such a vague question.“

A ripple of laughter echoed as he shook his head.

“Yet, we wrote it, I assume unless you have some crazy connections, we found an answer and we discovered something about who and what we were when we did. Something that we couldn’t have known before…. The entry tests, the classes--all of it lead us to discover ourselves. Our weaknesses, our strengths, our insecurities that we didn’t even know were there. And everyday we stuck it out through the testing and trials, everyday we didn’t give up was one more day that we learned that we could do this. That we were academy students and dedicated to become Alliance agents. There was no way of knowing every morning that we were going to make it through the day.

We didn’t know what we were, or what we could have been…. but we dreamed and we hoped and we fought through every day. We did what was necessary, what was possible, and eventually we did the impossible... and now, we’re here. Right where we dreamed and hoped we’d be.”

He felt his jaw tremble a bit, a moment’s remembrance of the fact that he almost didn’t make it through. Scott’s  eyes glistened and he knew he wasn't  the only one thinking about it.

“Today, we know that we have have come this far and know that we could get farther. It is through our darkest moments, however dark they may have been, that we saw our greatest light, that we truly learned ourselves. We stand on the edge of being something great, of advancing the cooperation of all on this planet through our work.

The people I see today, the people I am proud to graduate with, are not the same as they were when they entered. We’ve seen darkness, we’ve clung to light. We have come this far and only have farther to go. We who are here today are filled with so much potential, and so much potential for more, that we can never know who we are, nor what we may be. We can only learn and dream. So, to the bicentennial class of Alliance Academy, the Beacon Hills Edition, strive to be who you dream and always keep dreaming. Thank you.”

They clap and John can feel himself rising to stand and clap as well as Stiles escapes the stage and goes to sit wherever he was before. There are awards given out, cords of honor and plaques, medals, and things and John couldn't believe how many time Stiles had to get up for another award. The fact that Kira and Scott are called up as well in some cases isn't a surprise.

When it’s finally time for people to cross the stage, Stiles is shaking, having left his small heap of awards in his seat and way behind Scott and way in front of Kira, it’s hard to keep himself still. When he crosses the stage and hears the applause, his father, Melissa, the members of the police station all screaming for him, he smiles nervously and does his very best not to trip.

He’s presented with his diploma and Special Agent O’Reily offers him two chains: one is an pair of identification tags, which are the ones he will be wearing most often. The other is his Handler marker that should be reserved for official business with the Alliance and so forth. It’s made of moonstone, jade and onyx tipped in quicksilver and gold, it’s the same as his mother’s and he absolutely refuses to cry as he walks back to his seat and clutches it, wishing more than anything that she was there to see it.

The toss their caps with a cheer and suddenly it’s over and he’s being squeezed to death by John.

“Dad--can’t breathe.”

“I’m… so proud of you,” he says. “I know your mother would be too.”

He nods, being that they finally have closure on her case and the world seems to be settling back to normal, he and his father had found a tumultuous common ground. Stiles could finally put her picture back up in the living room and clip her ceremonial Handler marker on his keys. Her ID tags are kept safe in Stiles’s old bedroom in the box of things that remind him of her, including the title to the jeep.

They take a million pictures with each other, with other people from their classes. Tyler and Dylan are there to take pictures, Diego and Elliot are too and so many other people that were a part of that operation. Jayden comes to squeeze the life out of him, as does Max. Jayden is as bubbly as ever telling him how much he’s grown, how much he looks like his mother, how proud she would be of him. Max only tells him that he’d better outshine both his parents with that speech.

“Those are some pretty big shoes to fill.”

Max snorts, “I think you’re well on your way.”

And for just a second, out of the corner of his eyes, he see her. She’s in her biker babe outfit with the bright red tube top and short brown hair, leaning against the stage with soft eyes like his. Her lips are reddened with lipstick and she’s smiling, nodding at him and proud. Just the way she'd been when he last saw her alive: a wonder woman without the blue eyes.

_Mom…_

Before he can get a good look, she’s vanished, but the warm feeling in his chest doesn’t go away for days.


	5. In Every Way, The X To His Y--

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek and Stiles meet again  
> Cards Against Humanity  
> And Layla (you guessed it) is evil.

Derek is neither a pessimist or an optimist--he’s a realist. He knows that he has no choice in the matter so he stands in the appointed room at the appointed time and waits for his _Handler_ to come in. She’s a brunette all of five feet and three inches without the spike heels. He knows she’s worn them to appear in control, someone told her it was a good idea, probably O'Reily. When she enters the room, Derek can feel the push back from his wolf who howls and rushes at her. The energy surges, the lights flicker and claw marks appear on the door by her head before she can even enter fully. She goes pale and quickly exits the room. So much for control.

He almost laughs and knows that Special Agent O’Reily is cursing his name.

He’s called back the next week and this time, the room shakes and the man is thrown against the back wall. Derek is sitting in his chair when it happens and this time he does laugh. He goes through four handlers before Layla is there to yell at him.

“You’re doing this on purpose!”

He laughs, his head thrown back and she storms out. Deaton decides to take over the search for Derek’s handler and he’s free to assist other cases in the meantime. A lot of it is protective work and the like, but it’s work that isn’t bound to someone else. The idea of having a handler had rubbed him wrong even before Kate, but after her and the other it had enraged his wolf to no end. Derek hadn't been happy about either but as his job was mainly to channel not control the wolf within, to be a partner and vessel to him, he wasn't unsatisfied with the events. At the rate he was going, he'd be through the fresh handlers within a few days.

Stiles had gotten the summons an hour after lunch. Scott and Kira had gotten their compatibility results back within a week, it had been almost three months since Stiles graduated that he received the summons. He’d been assisting with cases in the purely intellectual way since then, doing research and the like and he’s more than itching to get going. The woman at the desk directed him towards one of the farther back rooms and told him to enter. There was something off about it. He knew why the room was sparse, but that didn't make it any better. There was the smell of magic and a thin shimmering in the air. Someone had cast a spell in the room recently and judging from the oddly shiny appearance of the doors and walls, it was to repair whatever magical maelstrom had taken place.

Derek is standing by the door in the middle of pacing when the door opens and he turns to take a breath, but the boy that enters does not cause a stir in his wolf, at least not a violent one. He watched the other move, but can’t see his face. The other is lithe almost skinny in his jeans, polo shirt, and jacket combination. He’s sporting a buzz cut and Derek wonders what kind of asshole he’s going to have to deal with. As usual, they haven’t given a name or any real information about the other. 

He was relying partially on his wolf to get him out of this because the thought of another handler made him feel sick and if he could continue to kick the alliance in the teeth for fucking up his life he would… Even if that meant being an ass.

“Excuse me!” A voice calls as the boy turns around and Derek’s eyebrows shoot up before the boy, _Stiles_ he remembers, can say anything.

He's pressing a finger to his lips before gesturing to the voice calling for Stiles through the open door. Stiles moves to rush to the door before the person calling him can step through. Derek doesn’t move while his heart is beating wildly and Stiles’s heart is ebbing to a casual pace as he directs the lost woman towards another room and steps back inside. He closes the door with a shake of his head before Derek is on him, grabbing him by the front of his jacket, lifting him slightly and holding him against the wall. His heart rate doesn't even flinch.

It’s Derek’s finger in his face before he can hear anything the man says, “If you think--”

“Can’t we just see if your wolf likes me first before you attack me?”

Derek goes quiet, not really sure how to answer that as he doubted that his wolf was going to attack him. Eyes flicker between Derek’s eyes and his lips as his own eyes dart between the younger's eyes and his lips and he’s pissed that he can’t get a solid read on Stiles. For one, he’s too young just barely ending adolescence that his scents are all confused, that and he was one of the few humans graced with a screwed scent profile. Normal humans followed the same sort of patterns when it came to scents and emotions. They all had a base scent. When they were angry, the scent got warmer, spicier. Anxiety was somewhere in between warmth and bitterness. Sadness was purely bitter and so on, but this one… This Stiles had a screwy base scent and even screwier change patterns. It could have been just his age, but he doubted it. He was one of the special ones and there was some dark undertone that made his wolf whine in sympathy and preen for some odd reason. So he would have to wait until he had a handle on Stiles to be able to read him fully.

“Until your wolf wants to rip my throat out, we’re partners,” he slaps Derek’s shoulder with the back of his hand. “Even if only probationary. Let’s refrain from the scare tactics until then, shall we?”

 _They’d done this match with their brains it seemed._ Derek wasn’t sure if they’d actually changed the pairing algorithm since the last terrible attempt to match him, but he’s sure that either they did or there was something extraordinary about this kid or at the very least Deaton had had a hand in it. Derek turns his head slowly to the place that Stiles tapped with the back of his hand before slowly centering his glare back on Stiles.

Stiles focused on keeping his heart rate even, maybe to piss Derek off or maybe because training all those years with his Mom was more than just second nature. But he feels it at slow and even pace: no fear, unaffected and Derek’s green hazel eyes are watching him. Stiles knows that lycans and other shifters have certain tells regarding their moods. Max tended to make subvocal sounds when he was feeling particularly obstinate about things. Scott’s was always the glowing of his eyes when he was upset. Derek’s was far more subtle: a tenseness in his jaw and throat and the intensity of his stare. There was only a hint of the lycan gold boosting the color of his green hazel eyes. Their shifting even now and Stiles is a little mesmerized. It’s not just that, but the energy he feels radiating off of Derek. He exudes command and strength in a way that Stiles hasn’t experienced before, not to mention he’s ridiculously handsome. Square jaw scruffy with stubble, high cheekbones and those eyes--he wondered if the other had dimples and if he ever smiled. Did his eyes flicker when he was happy too? But he meets his eyes unfailingly. They were partners whether Derek liked it or not. No matter how much stronger he was, no matter how tightly his fist clenched in his clothing, they were partners. Equals and Derek was just going to have to respect that fact… as contrary to the other’s nature as it was being that he was obviously the elder of the two.

Derek nodded and pulled back, straightening Stiles’s jacket with a deft tug on the hem of it. Stiles’s lips twitch into a half smile before he returns the gesture with a tug to Derek’s jacket. He moves to step around Derek and maybe out of annoyance, Derek juts his chin threatening towards him. The effect is immediate as it’s a gesture that Stiles knows well from high school and the old response to the jock show of power shatters the appearance of calm control he’d managed. He flinched and ducked away, half stumbling towards the chair that seemed to be his only point of salvation in the tiny meeting room. It was more of an interrogation room really. Enchanted blue door, no cameras, a table, two chairs and no furniture besides that. It was generally meant to encase each other in their scents and magical signatures to see if they were even potentially compatible. There were spells inscribed in the walls to alert people if the magical kickback was above the safety threshold. It dampened it and opened the door so one party could get out. Other spells were just meant to unlatch the magical barriers between internal and external when the door was closed so their energies could get a feel for one another.

The rooms were bare in case the magical profiles didn’t match up and set something off, but humans had so little magic that it only happened when the lycan’s wolf was really pissed off in which case the magic scorching the walls was the least of anyone’s worries as the others had found out. It usually took sometime of being in each other’s presence, at least an hour for each other’s magics to mingle in the air. The fact that the others had been so acute was a sign that maybe Derek’s wolf was getting stronger or was more irritated than he imagined. Perhaps, the wolf had already picked one out and wouldn't be satisfied with anyone else.

Derek takes the chair across the table from him and monitors Stiles with a stern stare. Stiles tries not to fidget under the scrutiny, but it’s hard as Derek is handsome and staring at him and he’s never had that much attention from anyone that good looking. Not to mention he’s about due for another dose of adderall. They'd said not to take it at least one dosage period before coming in, meaning it would be wearing off somewhere in the middle. He looks at Derek and then clears his throat, about to speak.

“Don’t,” Derek said and the air rushes out of him and he deflates.

 _What a sourwolf,_ he thought. He was sure that the other wasn’t happy being paired with a recent graduate, but given that they’d run into each other and didn’t seem to have any problems, this was turning into a bit of a clusterfuck. He'd been nervous that the shifter would try to kill him, or dismiss him, yet neither of those had happened. Instead, this shifter, Derek, was staring at him. What a mess.

Derek agrees if only because it seems that his wolf doesn’t just not mind Stiles, but may even like him. He can feel him reaching across the table, prowling the room, observing Stiles from every angle as if trying to get his attention. Stiles turns his head slightly and shivers as it scents him spiritually. The fact that Stiles can even feel that is odd, but even more so is that his scent changes, just a bit. He smells like sunlight and lightning with just a hint of honey and it shifts to grow warmer, sweeter.

Stiles watched the shifts in the air when Derek’s wolf crept, safely from Derek’s chest, the long wispy tether of a tail leading back to Derek’s chest was no more immaterial than he was, yet not the same. It was well known that shifter spirits merely existed on a different plane and thus were immaterial here, yet visible to the proper eyes.  Dark haired wolf with blue eyes that were all but glowing. He was beautiful, majestic and their eyes met. The wolf knew he could see him. In his experience, the moment could have gone one or two ways: the wolf could not care, or care a great deal. It seemed that Derek’s wolf was of the latter mindset as it crept around the room, surveying him and finally leapt back on to the table to nuzzle up against him. It was odd as Stiles had only been scented by Scott before and not Scott’s wolf. The first stroke sent a shiver of awareness down his spine and brushed right alongside the core of himself. He felt the anxiety ease and eventually the wolf was more like a really, really big puppy seeking attention. He smiled into his eyes and allowed the wolf to settle in his lap. A spiritually weighty presence that Stiles could feel probing the edges of his existence, but physically weightless.

“I think he likes me…” he said with a smile and Derek feels his heart stutter because yes, his wolf did like him.

Not that the other didn’t seem affable enough, but it was very rare for Derek’s wolf to like anyone… let alone a handler.

“It would seem so.”

Stiles smiled and offered him a hand, “Can we shake hands now?”

Derek’s brow furrows, but he offers his hand and gives it a firm shake. His wolf returns to merely existing at the core of Derek’s soul when he sits back and observes Stiles.

“I’m not sure how much they share as I… didn’t get anything at all. So… icebreakers.”

“Ice breakers?” He asked.

Stiles nodded, “Kira suggested it, a friend of mine.”

He’s digging in his pocket for a stack of cards There are two sets, one black and one white, that he shuffles separately.

“What is this?”

“Well we have like an hour to burn, so why not a little Cards Against Humanity the Ice Breaker Edition.”

Derek raises an eyebrow and tries hard to resist the kid, but before he knows it he’s got a hand full of cards: five white and five black.

“Since you’re the senior year, you go first.”

“How did you know that?’

Stiles raised his eyebrows just a bit, “Duh. You scream at least 25.”

Derek blinked and one eyebrow drifted up making Stiles stammer, “Not in that you’re really old way...but you just… seem older…. and your wolf feels really old… not in a bad way though. Not that it would be bad to be old I mean...”

“He feels old?” Derek asked waiting for the kid to stumble through an explanation.

“Uhm...I’m just going to pick a card and shove a foot in my mouth now.”

He selects a black card from Derek’s hand and sets it down: “The TSA guidelines now prohibit… on airplanes.”

Stiles wrinkles his nose and selects a white card from his hand: “Take-backsies.”

“What on earth are take-backsies?” Derek asked and Stiles laughed a little.

“It’s when you try and take something back… not like a words, but usually objects or offers. Cause obviously… you can never take back words.”

Derek frowns, what an odd thing for someone so young to say.

“I’m 20 actually.” Derek says after a moment and Stiles’s jaw drops as he plucks a black card from Stiles’s hand. “I’ll be 21 at the end of the year.”

“For my next trick, I will pull _____ out of _____.”

As disturbing as it is, Derek sets two cards down: “Coat hanger abortions” and “Cuddling” Stiles looks distraught at him in a dramatic sort of way, only half a laugh escapes him.

“That’s terrible.”

“The game is called Cards Against Humanity.”

Stiles concedes that point, “I’m seventeen. I turn 18 next year.”

Derek blinks, “Since when did the alliance let thirteen year olds enter the academy?”

“I entered when I was fifteen.”

Still a child, legal but really too young to be in this line of work, but given the boy’s perceptiveness, he shouldn’t have been surprised about it. The Alliance was known for snatching up talent and molding it as early as they could. Shifters could join as early as thirteen while the threshold was fifteen for humans. No one ever had joined that young as they usually weren't accepted, but there were a few exceptions that were usually shifter-related.  Derek had entered the academy at fourteen with his elder brother.

They play a few more rounds like this, pausing to stare in horror, shock or amusement at the answers they’ve pulled together out of the stack and swapping random information. Stiles is only partially surprised to hear that Derek is from Beacon Hills. He’s stunned to know that he is Derek _Hale._ Being that he was around police officers most of the time, he knew the name, some of the reputation and couldn’t help but gawk.

“Why are they pairing you with me?”

Derek gives him a pointed stare, “Because my wolf apparently wants to rip everyone else in your class’s throat out.”

Stiles nodded slowly, “That’s...a good reason. I guess.”

“You’re Claudia and John Stilinski’s son, aren’t you?”

He nods slowly, “You knew my mom?”

“I’ve met her, worked with her. Her and my mother were apparently partners for a while.”

Stiles wants to ask more about it, but the combination that Derek has placed on the table just sends him into a fit of laughter.

Viagra is, apparently, a slippery slope that leads to Derek’s collection of high-tech sex toys.

“Nice,” Stiles nods approvingly. “You’ve got to tell me where you source from, I know a few--”

“Don’t.” Derek growls out but Stiles can’t stop.

“How high tech and can lycans even take viagra? Or is there a lycan version? How potent?”

Derek feels his face heating as Stiles continues his word vomit and can only grumble lowly as the door opens and its Special Agent O’Reily standing there.

“Oh look, this one survived,” she turned to Stiles. “Congratulations to both of you. You’ll be tentative partners and your codename will be Nogitsune.”

Derek feels Stiles stiffen from across the table and the little bit of color that was there leave his face. His scent shift to grow cooler like fresh spring water and Derek can’t fully figure out what that means.

They stand to take the paperwork she offers and walk down the hall.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Agent Hale.”

“It’s Derek,” he said. “And tomorrow it seems, Stiles.”

Stiles nodded slowly, watching him walk away before shoving the cards in his pocket and heading towards his jeep. Scott and Kira had moved in together, leaving Stiles to find a place on his own. He’d found one pretty easily, a nice apartment near downtown. It wasn’t too far from the police station, the embassy or the Academy so it wouldn’t be a terrible commute.

He stumbled into his apartment and fell forward on to his bed with a deep sigh. He’d gotten a partner, a lycan, that didn’t want to kill him.

***

Layla O’Reily glared at the screen. Seeing their results from the retest, it was amazing that they’d had to waste all that time with the other pairings. At the same time, the fact that Derek had gotten partnered up with the valedictorian of the bicentennial class had rubbed her in all the wrong ways.

The highly anticipated, on watch son of Claudia Jacobs, the only spark Handler since the Alliance, and John Stilinski, a highly decorate, retired Handler. It didn’t help that Stiles had been quiet the rabble-rouser in high school since Scott had manifested. She hated Derek and she suspected him of many terrible things that should have gotten him killed or at least locked up in Texas, but no. He was the Hale golden child, the last of Talia Hale’s children besides Cora. He was damaged, battered, broken from the system. She’d wanted to pull Cora in to get a new Hale to control as Derek wasn’t one to be controlled… not since his partnership with Kate Argent, but those had been different times all together. A lycan with the lineage that Derek had had the potential to be a threat. There was too much bad blood, known and unknown, there was too much anger that would be easily communicated through the secret messaging of the wolf spirit. She only hoped that Deaton knew what he was doing and that it would fail so she could finally run the program the way it should have been run: shifter underfoot.


	6. Science Can't Explain Simple Genetics.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: sexist, racist asshole  
> Scott adopts Derek informally, crime scene, and wow... the Lycan Elders are really slipping in their duties... Fucking sellouts.

Derek and Stiles arrive at the same time to the embassy. They’re shown around the entire building before being guided to their desks. An IT person comes by to help them get settled in, but by then Stiles is already into the mainframe and loading his credentials on his computer. Derek uses his old login information and finds that his account with the alliance has been reactivated.

It takes only a hour of doing the backlog of paperwork before Black Angels comes to their side of the handler area. Scott and Kira are trailing after them. Black Angels had been a team for three years and on the force for much longer. Derek could hear the winces of the teams behind them when the Handler, one Dean Blackforest, announced that they would be taking them on a ride along. His partner, a small, beta lycan says nothing, but bows her head and doesn’t introduce herself. Derek decides that he doesn’t like Dean at all and his wolf is growling. He can smell fear and trace amounts of wolfsbane coming off the girl and something else that he can’t figure out, but her eyes sneak looks at him and Scott in turn before returning to the ground.

It seemed that very little had changed when it came to certain handlers and their shifter partners… Dean is in his fourties at least, the girl may be in her thirties, she’s older than Derek at the very least and she seems tired and zoned out. Stiles, in an attempt to make the best of it smiles, stands, and moves to follow them. Derek gets up as Stiles and Scott share a look, a familiar one that communicated more through the angles of their eyebrows than any words could.

_Jackass?_

_Racist, chauvinistic, swaggering ass hat…_

Stiles winces, he knows his own penchant for bullshit is low and knows for certain that Derek’s penchant is even lower. They climb into Stiles’s jeep and follow behind the silver porsche that the Black Angels command. They’ve given them a radio to hear whatever Dean is spouting about his cases, but have no way to communicate. Stiles counts it as a win.

“Thank the gods, he can’t hear us!” Kira said, flopping back in her seat. “I’ve wanted to run him through ever since we met.”

Stiles only chuckles and takes the time to introduce Derek to Scott and Kira.

“Would this be the Kira that suggested Cards Against Humanity?”

“Kira suggested cards,” she said. “Not Cards Against Humanity. The game is evil.”

Stiles shrugged, “It worked just fine.”

“ _We’re headed to a crime scene newbies. Looks like it’ll be your lucky day.”_

Kira rolls her eyes as they pull up behind the car. There is a squad car there and he recognizes the officer as Parrish and warns him subtly not to tangle with Dean or his partner.

“Go sniff out the suspect,” He said with a snap of his fingers and the girl is moving quickly into the house.  He turns. “She’s got the best nose--like a bloodhound.”

Derek and Scott manage not to growl as Dean turns towards them.

“What exactly are you two anyway? With the collars gone, you just can’t tell anymore.”

“Lycan,” they grit out, eyes flashing just a little and Dean snorts.

“Like we need more dogs around. Don't go humping the bitch while we're on duty.”

He moves towards the house before Stiles and Kira are stepping in front of Scott and Derek to stop them from thrashing the man to pieces. When they calm, the follow the two inside the house.

“Don’t touch anything! Pup, have you found anything yet?”

The four fan out across the house, sliding through the house as quietly as they can.

Stiles and Derek end up in the same room: the den it looks like. The couches look like they’ve been moved from their normal spots and Derek approaches the window, crouching to survey the carpet. He turns his head slowly, his brow slightly furrowed as his eyes glance across the room. Up and around the room, until his eyes catch something on the ceiling and his gaze stops to take it in. He can feel Stiles beside him shivering from the aura in the air, he’s surprised that someone as scattered brained and as young as Stiles was could feel something as subtle as death aura.

Someone had died in this house, yet Derek couldn’t immediately tell who or by what, how many people or really anything. It was as if the place was wiped clean, but they’d missed a spot, a tiny blot of blood on the ceiling. It was fairly fresh too within a few hours of them arriving, meaning they'd probably used magic to clean the place.

Derek rose slowly and focused his sight to get a sense of what it could be, hearing the snap of plastic gloves.

“What are you doing?” Derek asked.

“Found something,” Stiles said. “What are you doing?”

“This isn’t our crime scene,” Derek said.

“Doesn’t seem to be stopping you from staring at the blood in the ceiling.”

He looked at Stiles with interest. He'd noticed it too… Stiles is handing over a pair of latex gloves he’s pulled from his pocket and sliding one on. Derek focuses on the blood on the ceiling and tries to get a scent off it.

_Female, recently dead, and young…dragon..._

Stiles is crouching along the baseboards and speaking softly to Derek or maybe to himself as Kira and Scott enter the room.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m looking for magical residue and maybe--hah.”

He stops pulling a small vial from his pocket and Derek wonders what exactly else is in Stiles’s pockets. He scraping the edge of it along the base board until a fine white, shimmering powder falls to the bottom of the vial. He corks it and take out his phone to focus it on the small rune etched into the baseboard. It's  light and in and fading, but still held a subtle glow.

“What is it?”

Stiles shakes his head, he isn’t familiar with it, but he bet if he ran it through the database, they’d find something. Dean enters the room to see them standing around and looking inconspicuously around the room.

“They said there was a murder, but I don’t see anything and the pup hasn’t picked anything up.”

Derek and Scott flinch at the sound of his voice and Stiles and Kira can feel their wolves itching to tear his throat out.

“Come along ride alongs, there’s been another call a break in in progress. Pup’s gone ahead.”

Derek and Scott leave first, following the smell of her through the city blocks and rushing after her. Stiles hangs back to collect the sample of blood from the ceiling. It’s still slightly wet that he can scrape some of the glob off the ceiling and manages a picture before heading towards the jeep. Kira raves the entire way to the break in about bashing Dean’s head on the wall.

They arrive only to be told to stay in the car. Derek and Scott are regulated to hang back as well and they lean angrily against the car. Stiles is opening his tablet to access the database and upload the rune to be searched. Derek and Scott watch the perpetrator run past the beta girl who had been told to stay outside. Derek heard Dean yelling for “Pup” inside the house but she couldn’t hear him. Her eyes flashing gold as she crumbled to the ground.

“What’s wrong with her?” Scott asked, Derek glances at the younger lycan and then to the girl who is on her knees, hands over her ears at the sound of gunshots. He gets off the car and motions for Scott to follow him towards the girl.

They move slowly as to not startle her.

“All of five years ago, handlers were given full jurisdiction over their shifter partners. They were forced to live with them, to abide by their rules. The rules for conduct were shady,” Derek explained. “She’s been under his influence, his rule which I can only guess is tyrannical and sadistic at best...She’s a beta that has been too long without a pack.”

Scott looked at him, “How can you tell all of that?”

“The way she smells,” Derek said. “Can you not tell the scents apart?”

Scott shook his head, they were always jumbled around for him, he hadn’t managed to ever learn to tell them apart. Agent McCall hadn’t been there for when Scott came into his lycan hood and was more or less still absent. It had been Stiles that helped him through a lot of the harder things, but things of finesse, things that Stiles wouldn’t know about he had no clue.

“Your father...never taught you?”

He swallowed and nodded, “Wasn’t really around to.”

Derek nodded, “Take a deep breath and try to find the strongest scent, the one that is present across all of them.”

Scott did as he asked and as he was standing beside Derek, he got the scent of leather, pine, ash, and something warm like a sun-warmed rock and fresh like a spring. There was something spicy too but the rock and spring, like a forest clearing in the middle of the day, was the scent that he could smell through all the others, hiding behind them all.

“Sun and dirt... maybe water.”

Derek nodded, “Good, that’s what’s called a base scent of a person. It’s what they smell like without the layers of emotions and outside influences.”

“What’s the spicy scent? Like cinnamon or anise or something.”

“That’s an emotion,” Derek said, his eyes focused on the girl still having a panic attack as he reaches within touching distance.

Scott smells wolfsbane and gun powder on her, blood and bruises, and something sweet like honey beneath it at all that’s almost overwhelmed by the bitter smell of burning acid or something.

 _Fear_ , his wolf supplies for him. The girl is afraid. Derek kneels beside her, Scott watches in something like amazement as Derek’s eyes glow yellow and he can feel the shift of spirits in the air. The air between them shimmers for just a second before Derek speaks.

“Aq’a top garga’a gavar aqr`guva ‘ruard...a’aq xkina uira ar`astad lo? A’aq xkina gouva lo?”

_I lend my hand to you, lost one, as a friend… Will you let me ease your fear? Will you let me help?_

Scott swallowed, he felt his wolf stir a bit at the words and the way the way they brushed against his spirit. The girl seemed to hear him, her eyes glowing and she launched herself into his arms, scenting him, whimpering and trembling. Derek stroked her hair, nuzzling her and rubbing her back.

“ _Uil garga’a…”_ Calm, lost one. “ _Uil._ ”

Derek felt the trembling die down slowly as he spoke and let her be near to him. She smelled vaguely familiar, like her scent was buried underneath layers or pain and separation. She was lonely, her instincts were in control of most of her actions. She was practically feral, but controlled only by her handler. It made him sick. She shouldn't be anywhere near a crime scene like this, she should've gotten help. Her handler should have gotten her help, the Alliance... the Lycan Elders. He'd have to bring it to their attention if it wasn't already and if it was he had some things to say. There was no excuse for one of their own, a lycan, to be in this state… and the thought of the number of Lycan agents who’d let this continue pissed him off even more.

Scott kneeled an expression somewhere in between shock and amazement as Stiles and Kira came over. Dean came out of the house, toting his gun. Sirens came and they heard him yelling.

“What the hell, pup? What the hell are you doing?”

It’s Stiles that steps in front of them before Derek can even speak. The girl is pulling away from him, stumbling back and staring up in fear as Dean descended the steps. Stiles stood in his way.

“Move, boy--”

“I’m not going to stand by and watch you terrorize this poor woman. You call yourself a _Handler_ , you’re just and abusive, swaggering ass hole.”

His face flushed, “What did you say?”

“What? The penis enlargement pills finally shrunk your brain to dust? Throwing your weight around, terrorizing this woman who is supposed to be your _partner_ is not what being a handler is about. She’s a person not some animal! You can't treat her like this!”

Dean growled and Stiles heard a click and felt a shimmer in the air, before he was tackled by the girl. A feral snarl in his ear and a creeping feeling that he was about to be ripped to shreds up his spine--

“We’ll see what the hell you think of it now.”

His face fell to the ground as the girl landed on him with a feral snarl. Scott was up then, but it’s Derek that growls loud enough and she freezes moments before her claws are coming down on his face. Stiles stares up into her eyes, golden and trembling, their pained, but so beyond consciousness. Their feral and just a little conscious light is there...it's instinct too, Stiles knows that and focus on calming his heart. If he's  calm, she'll be calm. One more erratic sound could break whatever pull Derek had over her.

“What are you doing, Pup?” Dean asked and he heard the click and felt the shimmer again.

Her eyes pulse for just a moment, but her body is relaxing and the Sheriff is running up the way to get to them.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He hears another click before her eyes return to their sad blue and she scrambles off Stiles to stand beside Dean who’s more angry than ever and glaring at Derek who only looks at him pointedly as the Sheriff arrives and looks between the six. He turned to Dean.

“What are you doing? Agent Dean?”

“Teaching this smart ass kid a lesson--”

“You think manipulating your partner into attacking a new handler is an effective way to show them what being handlers is about?” John asked as deputies cleared the house. “You think attacking my _son_ is a good idea?”

Dean blanched glancing at Stiles who stood up and dusted himself off and back to the Sheriff, “I didn’t know he was your son.”

“It shouldn’t matter if he is or not. He doesn’t get special treatment, but you can believe that the alliance will hear from me about what I’ve seen tonight.”

Dean sneered, “You can’t prove anything.”

“I won’t need to,” he said. “You keep going on and it will get you killed one way or another.”

Stiles smiles lightly at Derek, “ _Selm erou._ ”

John whirled hearing the words as Derek nods slowly, “Stiles, I’ll have words with you later. What happened with the break in?”

Dean gave him a rundown of the events and the fact that “pup” was freaking out.

“And what were you all doing?” John asked. “I know one of you could have caught the guy.”

Kira pressed play on her cellphone, “ _Stay in the car and out of the way, newbies._ ”

John nodded as Dean growled, “So it’s your fault that the suspect has escaped. Was anything stolen? Anyone injured?”

“Minor.”

Somehow John knew it wasn’t that simple. He told the four to head in while he got a description of the man. Stiles and Kira found the man with a bullet wound in his side. the deputy trying to speak to him was at a loss and calling in an ambulance.

Derek kneeled and laid a hand on the man’s side, “Anyone with some first aid knowledge?”

Stiles nodded and kneeled beside the Deputy who was talking the man through the pain and keeping pressure on the wound. 

“That bullet has to come out,” Derek said. “It’ll just cause more damage.”

The man gasped and Stiles pulled the knife out of his boot. It was a small, tiny dagger as Derek’s eyes flashed yellow and his veins turned black. The man stared up at Derek as Stiles pried the wound apart to get the spiked bullet out without causing more damage.

He pulled it out with the other latex glove and deposited into the awaiting ziploc bag.

“Wolfsbane, hunter’s bullet, we were just lucky that it didn’t explode.”

The bullet lit up and crumbled to pieces releasing a clear liquid.

“What the hell is that?”

“Wolfsbane,” Stiles said. “It’s an advanced version of the hunter’s bullet… he’s human so his body temperature wasn’t high enough for it to break. Lucky for him…”

 _In a shifter though..._ Derek felt his throat working. He knew how badly a hunter’s weapon could hurt and liquid wolfsbane would be hell and death... a very slow death at that.

Stiles managed to staunch the bleeding and sew some makeshift stitches in before applying a loose bandage. The medics arrived as the man was thanking them profusely and Stiles winced at his shirt.

“First ride along and I’ve got blood on my shirt.”

Scott slapped him on the back, “That was awesome.”

John clapped them all, save Derek, on the shoulder and the rest of the night was spent following the Black Angels around the city as they did their patrols until their shift was over only to have to meet with them in the morning.

“We were awesome…” Scott said as they arrived at Kira and Scott’s apartment.

“Yeah…” Stiles said, glancing at Derek.

“Thanks for the ride Stiles,” Kira said. “Nice meeting you Derek, let’s hope this track record keeps up and they make us a power team or something.”

Derek snorted and waved his goodbye. He could hear Scott telling Kira about learning to pick out scents and wanting to practice when they had a chance. Stiles pulled away from the building to head back towards the embassy to drop Derek off at his car.

“How did you learn lycan?” Derek asked looking at him. “Your pronunciation is very good.”

A bit of an understatement, Stiles had a perfect accent as if he’d grown up speaking it.

“Dad’s partner, Max, was lycan. I spent a lot of time with him and my mom’s partner and I picked it up easy… That and draco.”

Derek nodded slowly, “Are you fluent?”

He nodded, “I only ever get to practice with Max, but when we talk that’s all we talk in. Dad never learned, but Mom knew draco and lycan so we practiced while she was alive… it’s just something I tried to keep up with...In high school it earned me a lot of cool points.”

Derek nodded again and moved to get out of the car, “See you tomorrow, Stiles.”

“Aqou, _”_ he said cheerfully as Derek climbed out.

Derek wondered how much longer he would be able to resist speaking lycan around Stiles…. also wondered how long it would be before Scott began to idealize him as some sort of older brother figure.


	7. So Familiar, The Blue In His Eyes--

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teaching Scott Lycan, heart to heart and who the fuck is that? Stiles does something that humans should be able to do... What's new?

After another three ride alongs with the Black Angels, and some quality time in the office, Scott is officially one of Derek’s biggest fans. Stiles likes to tell him that he’s like the big brother that Scott never had and something like a father-ish figure and Derek tries his best not to growl about it. He’s all for educating the Lycan youth if only because the more they know about themselves, the better they’ll be able to defend themselves and their pack mates in the future. It was rather unfortunate that Scott had to learn pain transference because Dean’s stray bullet had cut through Kira’s shoulder, but better than never learning it at all. He was beginning to learn a bit of lycan from Derek and Stiles having a chance to practice it.

“Gay-ver,” Scott tries and Stiles shakes his head and presses a hand to the other’s chest.

“From here, it’s “ah” not “ay”.”

Scott pouted, “ _Gah-ver._ ”

Stiles shakes his head, “ _Gavar._ It’s almost a growl but not quite. Try again.”

“ _G-grrr…”_

It’s Kira that laughs as Scott’s cheeks flush after losing control of the sound. It was weird, trying to use his lycan voice without shifting. He never felt that close to his wolf except around the full moon, but every full moon was just a hazy memory.

“How do you do this anyway?” Scott asked.

Stiles grinned, “Max and I spent a lot of time growling at each other when I was kid. Taught me everything I know.”

Derek arrives to their little corner of the floor to see Scott trying to growl out the word for help and does his best not to be amused. It was like watching Vanessa, his youngest cousin all of two years old, speaking in the middle of a shift. She was the fluffiest ball of fluff he’d ever had the pleasure of growling with. It was generally harder for lycans to get in touch with their wolves when they were older if they had not grown up attached to them. Wolves didn't do well in darkness or with long term separation.

“ _Ga--va-errrr…”_

Derek shook his head, and maybe to spare Scott’s feelings, stepped in.

“Let me give it a try,” he said, wheeling his chair towards Scott and having him face him.

“From your chest,” he said. “But not so deep that you growl. It’s subvocal, the sound comes from the spirit, you have to feel your wolf. The word means to give, to lend...”

That reason alone made it amazing that Stiles could speak it. The only people he knew that could speak it were lycan, sparks, and other distant relatives of the lycans. Druids had a hard time with the deeper sounds and others just didn’t have the spiritual depth to do it.

Scott licked his lip nervously. His wolf and he hadn’t completely been able to get along in the days after he found out exactly what he was and the fact that his mother had hidden it from him. Melissa McCall had done her best to shield him from the truth, putting him on a light regiment of wolfsbane that gave him asthmatic symptoms but rendered him practically human. He hadn’t known his father was a lycan… he hadn’t known that he’d inherited the gene until he lost his inhaler on his sixteenth birthday and had nearly mauled Stiles during a half shift. He was only lucky that the other had known so much about lycans and Max had been there to help.

He’d hated it, the wolf, his mom, his father that had just left him to fend for himself with the oncoming changes… it had been Stiles to help him struggle through, to hold his hand and keep him from murdering anyone… He regretted every day that he hadn’t been able to do the same for the other. He was almost eighteen now and had only two years and a few months of being a lycan. He’d had all of a few hours to realize it before they put the collar on and changed his class schedule, removing him from everything he’d ever known.

“We aren’t exactly on the best terms…”

Derek snorted at that, he was still alive and looked as if his wolf was filling out his form just fine.

“Have you shifted fully?”

Scott shook his head, he’d managed to pull himself back from that edge every time and Derek’s eyebrows lifted ever so slightly before nodding.

“Another time,” he said. “For now, breath and close your eyes and relax. You’re too tense. Lycan is practically… lyrical, it’s not something aggressive. It’s a spirit language, it’s supposed to be soft and comforting. It's meant to denote a closeness as in my spirit speaks to yours.”

Stiles looked at him and then Scott closed his eyes, “Soft? Comforting?”

Derek nods, “ _Uil, garga’a…_ ”

Scott frowns, but feels it like a stroke to his soul. It’s warm and comforting and feels like when he'd half shifted and Stiles had talked him down from a full human to a stack of steaks.

“What does that mean?” Scott asks with his eyes closed. “It feels odd.”

“Peace, or calm, lost one.”

Scott hears a whine from somewhere inside him and for the first time since being a Lycan he can feel his wolf there. It’s small and tentative, a partial paw in the light, but Scott can feel it.

“ _Gavar…”_ he hears himself say and he opens his eyes. Stiles is grinning at him with a nod.

There’s a shout for joy and Scott finds himself hugging Derek, who stiffens a bit at the contact. Stiles's eyes grow wide as do Kira before Scott jumps back, his arms up in surrender.

“Sorry! Just… a tad--”

“ _Uil, garga’a._ ” Derek says again. “ _Uil._ ”

Stiles imagined him as a puppy with bright shiny eyes looking up to Derek, this much older stronger wolf even the gap in age isn’t that large. Derek pats him on the head before the Black Angels come. Dean glares at them all and tells them that they have assignments.

Stiles is surprised that Kira manages not to slit the man’s throat, but figures the fact that Dean’s plan to make them suffer was quickly turning into easy street. They chased a thief down main street. Scott had caught up with him while Derek caught his companion and the two growled, backing them into the same alley to be cuffed.

A week of similar incidents make Dean even more angry than ever. They have more paperwork, but no one can deny that they make a good team even if Stiles and Scott came up with some of the most insane plans to capture deranged Lycan children like howling into the local grade school speaker system in the middle of the night of a new moon. It sounds like a cry for help.

“You have got to be kidding me…” Derek said shaking his head. Kira sharpens her sword.

“‘Fraid not,” she said. “That’s what happens when they get together.”

When they appear Derek is growling at them, “I’m gonna kill both of you! What the hell was that? What are you trying to do? Attract the entire state to the school?”

“Sorry,” Scott said a bit ashamed and pink around the ears. “I didn’t know it would be that loud.”

“Yeah, it was loud... and it was awesome!”

“Shut up,” Derek huffed.

“Don’t be such a sourwolf.”

Ironically, it was perfect and did attract practically every wild shifter child to the school in almost record time. Derek wasn’t sure if he should laugh that Scott’s first howl was apparently a round ‘em up for lunatic children.

“I knew it would work,” Stiles said. “It’s cause Scott’s like a toddler lycan himself.”

Derek frowned at that and looked at Stiles oddly. What an oddly insightful thought for a kid that thought “sourwolf” was a potent insult.

Tonight, they’re on call and Scott has decided that he and Stiles needed some brotherly bonding time, alcohol and Stiles needs to get laid. It helped that Kira had an engagement at the embassy and Derek had something to handle so the dream team was separate on their own tonight except for the original bromance. So here they were at Wicked and had been for about twenty minutes before they reach the bar. Stiles had a niggling sensation in the back of his mind and wished that Scott had told him what the plan for the night was rather than just showing up at his apartment with the intent to drag him out of it. Per Wicked’s standards, the bartender that takes their orders is half naked and backed by a wall of liquor. Stiles’s eyes rake over the other’s form appreciatively, before being distracted by the half-naked woman in a bikini top that passes behind him. They ask for Dr. Pepper if only because they can’t drink and it’s been awhile since they’ve managed to get a drink… Even if they could they were still technically on duty.

Stiles is nodding his head to the sound of the music and looking out into the crowd when the bartender comes back with their cups.

“That one’s paid for,” the bartender said, before looking behind him and nodding to the guy on the other side of the bar.

The guy was cute enough, but he smiled and nodded at Scott and Stiles took some offense to that. If only because Scott was attached to his Handler and they were supposed to be getting rid of Stiles’s virginity.  Perhaps it was the fact that Scott always had a way, the lycan way, of looking like a college student fresh from the library in his long grey undershirt and faded blue jeans and polo look: legal, and ready to party while Stiles always looked like someone’s little brother who probably shouldn’t even be allowed into the bar. Scott had always managed to look as if he belonged for as long as Stiles could remember. When he’d come into his lycan-hood (and all the drama afterwards), he wasn’t surprised at all.

Scott looks at Stiles with the beginnings of a smile and Stiles only gives him a flat “shut up, Scott” look. Standing in his black t-shirt and grey striped cotton jacket, he’s out of place in the club, at least more out of place than Scott and that was all that mattered. If Scott had told him his plan, he may have actually tried a little harder. As usual, Scott’s weakness was in his inability to inform the subject of the plan in the plan to a useful extent.

Scott places his hand on the drink, moving the straw to one side before turning to grin at his cup and lift the straw from it. He’s trying really hard not to say anything, Stiles can tell and he makes a face somewhere in between annoyed, sickened, and exasperated.

“Ah, shut up.”

He grabs the other drink as Scott lets out a chuckle and Stiles meets eyes with the guy across the bar for a moment and turns slightly.

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, well your face said it.”

He casts another look in the guy’s direction, lifting the straw to his lips and hollowing his cheeks before turning towards the board of people on the dance floor. He drops the straw from his lips immediately as Scott turns with him. Stiles places a hand underneath Scott’s cup and flashes a tiny burst of light to see the particles floating in it: wolfsbane, a rare strand of yellow good, for tranqing a lycan.

Just as he thought with a sigh.

“It’s been spiked.”

Scott frowns and looks at the cup, “Are you serious?”

“Special wolfsbane blend: scentless, tasteless, but will knock your ass out. They're  poachers and they’ve been watching us since we came in.”

Scott wants to curse but follows Stiles away from the bar, it’s a pain in the ass to both pretend to drink and slowly pour out the drink as they move through the club and Scott can tell that Stiles is on edge. The club is filled with alcohol and a mix of sweat and sex, but Stiles’s shoulders are tense. Then, Scott opens his senses and can feel eyes tracking him.

Stiles leans into a stumble and Scott follows his lead, stumbling towards the bathrooms and the small corridors that lead towards the back alley. The door opens behind them and Stiles feels hands on his shoulders, he’s spun around and lands a solid punch into the guy’s face. Scott has already incapacitated the other and before Stiles’s attacked can think to run, or shoot a tranq his way, the gun is out of his hand and Stiles’s roundhouse is in his neck and they’re on the ground.

Stiles cuffs the guy that’s under him as Scott is cuffing the other.

“What… the fuck…”

“Assaulting of two Alliance officers, intent to poach a lycan, and drugging drinks at a minor’s bar? For shame…”

Scott laughs and calls the police station. When they say they’re on their way, he gets a call from Kira about another backup assignment with Black Angels.

“Go on,” Stiles said, dragging the conscious man towards his unconscious compatriot with a sigh.

The night air is cool around him and he takes a deep breath. He was supposed to be having fun. There’s a shiver in the air and he hears the scream before rushing back into the club. A dancer is shaking, a lycan woman grasping her throat, her veins going black and he knows is wolfsbane as he pushes his way to her, making sure to catch the man heading the opposite way and tossing a vial to the ground by the throat and cuff him on the floor.

“Alliance agent, coming through!” he shouts, strong arming his way through the crowd with his badge in the air.

A girl is screaming, “Please, Laia! Laia!” when he manages to push his way to where the woman has collapsed.

Stiles reaches into his pocket, his holster’s compartment and prays that it isn’t too late.

“Call an ambulance!” he yells over his shoulder as the music cuts to an end. “Laia is it. Stay with me, focus.”

The girl is shaking, her veins turning black as she pressed them to Laia’s neck and forehead and black ooze begins to come out of her mouth.

She’s swallowed it and Stiles sits her up to perform heimlich until she empties her stomach on to the club floor and stabs her with a quick release wolfsbane antidote in her throat.

“Laia, can you hear me? The medics are on the way, just breathe.” he looks at the girl who’s a shaking mess, still drawing pain from her and then to the nearest stander by.

“Water, sea salt, green tea, if you’ve got it, hurry up.”

The man rushed towards the back where the bar was as he guided Laia on to her hands and knees with the girl’s hand on her neck, her veins still black.

“It’s going to be alright, Laia. It’s going to be alright.

The man returned with it and Stiles plucked unopened bottle of green tea from his hands and told her to drink it before filling it up with water and salt and telling her to drink it, she shuddered at the saltiness. When it was in her system, he focused, watching the glow of her wolf twisting, the energy ramping up to force the wolfsbane out, but not fast enough punched her in the center of the swirling energy. The swirling exploded through her, through the mixture in her stomach and carrying the effects of the mixture and the antidote through her body. She threw it all up, mixed with back and fell on to the girl who glared at him, but her breathing was beginning to pick up again, now a soft wheeze and her eyes dazed and fading to their human green in the dim light. Deputies pushed their way through and medics came to lift her on to the stretcher they’d brought. The girl followed them and Stiles looked at his father who only shook his head at the mess on the floor and told him to come outside.

The deputies find the cuffed man and Stiles directs them to the general area where the vial fell and to the back alley where the two poachers lay unconscious. When he steps outside, there are squad cars lining the street and people are being questioned.

“Not exactly your type of club,” Sheriff Stilinski said. Stiles has his hands together over his sternum and glances nervously towards the entrance to Wicked.

Damn, this wasn’t exactly how he expected this conversation to go. Sure, he knew it was going to be awkward, but in his mind there was no dead body involved and Scott wasn’t trying to get him laid while doing it. There also hadn't been a run in with poachers.

“Uh, well… Dad,” his hands drop and swing a bit as he looks down.

The Sheriff has seen the move too many times not to know that something was up. It was almost impossible to tell if Stiles was actually nervous about being at a gay club, in the middle of a crime scene, attacked by poachers or just about to lie. His son was so complicated sometimes.

“There’s a conversation we need to have—“

_Of course._

“You’re not gay.”

The Sheriff can’t even believe that Stiles would attempt to play that card. He’s out of touch, but he isn’t _that_ out of touch. Stiles’s head slides forward in disbelief.

 _Really?_ He won’t even consider it?

“Wha—I could be.”

He puts his hands down, now partially defensive. The Sheriff shook his head, giving his son a once over.

“Not dressed like that.”

Stiles’s jaw drops and he looks down at his ensemble. Black t-shirt, baggy lazy grey striped jacket, jeans, and sneakers.

“Well… what’ wrong with what I’m wearing? Let’s not even get to how painfully ignorant that was for you to say.”

It’s then that John is suspicious and Stiles rubs a hand over his head, “Have you been drinking?”

“No,” Stiles said. “Although the way tonight is going, I wish I had been.”

In the distance, he can see the medics loading Laia and the girl that had been with her into the back of an ambulance. She’s on an oxygen tank, and charcoal IV. Stiles has a good feeling that she’s going to be fine.

“I thought you were hanging out with Scott tonight…”

“He had to go and…” Stiles looked at his phone, flashing the number of the Embassy. “Apparently, so do I.”

“We’re going to need your statement, but get going.”

Stiles nodded, jogging to his jeep before he realizes it and heading towards the Embassy. When he arrives, Derek is stiff and waiting for him in the foyer. He smells of wolfsbane, Lycan blood, salt and club.

“What happened?” Derek asked.

“Poachers at a bar, three, a woman was poisoned, she’s on her way to the hospital.”

“Well change first, you smell like death.”

He nods, heading towards the locker rooms. He gets out of his clothing and slides into a red tracksuit with white stripes down the shoulders and sides of the pants that they used for post workout clothes. He meets up with Derek to get down the hall. The lights are flickering as they head towards the pool. The sky is dark through the glass ceiling, but there’s enough light from the backup generators to light the pool and the edges.

“What’s going on?”

“Someone’s broken in, we don’t know why or how. I’m taking you to the safe room.”

“Where are you going?”

“After them.”

Stiles stops walking after him.

"No," he said and Derek turned to look at him.

"What?"

Stiles took a deep breath, "I said no. I'm not your trainee, or someone you have to manage or protect, Derek.”

“This isn’t some random robbery,” Derek said. “They’ve set a Kanima loose.”

Stiles’s hands grip. The Kanima, he knew that there had been one a few years back that had been captured until the turmoil had been undone, but what someone wanted to do with a Kanima wasn’t a good idea.

“You’re not ready for--”

“How would you know?”

Derek grit his teeth, but before he could speak, Stiles was talking again. That focused angry talking he did whether he was on his meds or not.

“I’m not a civilian. I'm your partner, your equal. That means you can't just order me around or try and shut me away like a damsel needing protecting. I've deferred to your judgement, trusted you enough not to argue. But if you can't even try to do the same, then..."

He turn his eyes down and closes his eyes, resigning the words to come out of his mouth, “Maybe… we aren’t a good match after all.”

Derek’s eyes are dark under the lack of light. His expression is implacable as he listens. He’s too far for Stiles to watch the flicker of colors in his eyes, to figure out what he was thinking from just the shift of the hues there and part of Derek is grateful.

He knows that Stiles is right, but his wolf is ready to bare his fangs and demand Stiles submit to his will. He wants to protect Stiles and has no way of knowing that Stiles will be able to handle himself. He’s skinny, good with a gun, but too damn young to die horribly like Paige had. But he has no hold on Stiles… His wolf growls at that and Derek nods slightly, the surprise fading to a sense of an emotion that neither of them had a name for. Stiles feels the wall go up even as he is putting his own up in the way Derek’s mouth closes, his jaw sets loosely and he nods.

“Maybe.”

Derek’s fist curls and it’s all he can do to keep his claws retracted and the wolf inside. Being partnered with someone who his wolf had grown so close to so fast wasn’t good. They would get hurt, things would happen and Derek wasn’t sure if he could take another blow like that… He wasn’t sure if his wolf would be able to take it either. Paige had been different.

Stiles stiffens and Derek whirls around to see the dark shadow hissing in the distance. Stiles pulls his gun from his waistband, his eyes trained in the direction of the hissing as it slithered across the wall. He searched his brain for facts.

Kanima were a mutation of Lycans, a manifestation of inner turmoil, who sought a master, paralytic, homicidal. And he swallows as it moved again, slithering across the ground towards them, looking at Stiles. Derek’s eyes glowed, bracing himself.

“Run, Stiles.”

Stiles felt the shimmer in the air and ducked, crouching the ground as Derek lept forward, the kanima vanished for just a moment and Stiles could almost feel the warmth of its scales as he dove aside and rolled on to his feet. He fired a single shot, sure that he’d hit it from the pained cry and moved to get Derek.

His body felt dizzy, heavy… too heavy. He’d been poisoned. Stiles found his way to his side, leaning him against him and dragging him forward, his gun in hand.

“Come on Derek,” he said, his eyes shifting around, but Derek could hear it creeping behind them, across the way. They were getting distance, but it wouldn’t matter.

It was toying with them.

“Stiles… run…”

“Shut up and stumble!”

Stiles growled as the kanima crept in their way and in an attempt to avoid another swipe with it, shoved Derek towards the pool and out of the way. The claws missed by inches before Stiles dropped his gun and dove into the pool after Derek’s sinking body struggling against the water to  reach him even as the chlorine burned his eyes. The sourwolf better be grateful for this. Derek didn’t move, his eyes closed, almost halcyon as Stiles grabbed him. The other’s eyes opened to look at him confusion.

The idiot, they were both going to drown if he thought that Stiles could keep Derek afloat. He was probably closer to three times Stiles’s weight.

He pulled against him, Derek up realizing it would have been impossible if not aided by the water. Once he’d kicked off the bottom of the pool, he kicked furiously until they broke the surface and could both gasp in relief. Stiles, kicked hard, holding Derek and his own head just barely above water as they cast their eyes around to find it.

“Maybe it’s gone,” he said.

The hissing told him otherwise and as he met the eyes of a psycho- tormented Lycan mutation that meant very much to kill them both, yet seemed to not like the idea of taking a dip, Stiles could have slapped himself. Chlorine… snakes and contaminated water.

 _Small victories…_ he thought with an incredulous laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“Snakes don’t like chlorine,” Stiles said, huffing to keep Derek afloat.

“Great…” Derek said. “Can you get me out of here before I drown?”

“You’re worried about drowning? Did you notice the thing out there with multiple rows of razor sharp teeth?”

“Did you notice that I’m paralyzed from the neck down in 8 feet of water? Leaning on a skinny twig of a teenager, barely out of puberty, to hold me up until the venom wears off? So yes, I am worried about drowning. It’s my more pressing concern at the moment.”

Stiles huffed, “I could let you go right now.”

“And do what? Tread water for hours?”

“Be a lot easier without an ungrateful, paralyzed, fat sourwolf to keep afloat!”

Derek growled low in his throat, his eyes flashing blue, “ _I am not fat._ ”

Stiles could have laughed, they were barely floating on Stiles’s skinny, tired legs and Derek was having a vanity crisis. Fucking perfect.

“Of everything I just said, fat is what you got out of it? I thought you were a wolf not a show dog!”

Derek let out another growl, “I swear, Stiles… I’m going to kill you.”

“Not before I let you drown, now shut up and let me think.”

The kanima prowled, eyes focused on the two of them, probably searching for some way to get to them. They were dead center in the pool and the kanima looked more than anxious to get to them. But then Derek heard footsteps and it scurried off, through the locker rooms as silent as the grave. Stiles cursed, his legs and lungs burned, but he kept treading, and screaming for someone to hear them.

He had no idea of how long they were there but when Scott and Kira arrived, it was a welcome relief. Scott threw the life-saver towards them, effectively hitting Stiles in the head.

“Ouch!”

“Sorry,” he said, as Kira cleared the room and did her best not to step in the paralytic goo even as Stiles did his best to direct her to collect samples. Stiles got the hoop around Derek and held on as Scott pulled them to the side. Scott pulled Stiles out first and then Derek, laying them on the ground. Stiles trembles sitting up.

“What the hell happened?”

“Kanima, partners… paralyzed…”Stiles huffed. “ _Food._ ”

Kira shook her head and snorted, helping Stiles to his feet after her grabbed his gun and Scott heaved Derek up.

“How long have you been in the pool?”

“A while…” Stiles said, limping on his trembling legs.

When he caught glimpse of the clock, he realized that they’d been in the pool for two hours and he was a little more than hungry.

It turned out that whoever broke in was killed by the kanima and now it was out and on the loose.

***

“This is unacceptable,” Special Agent O’Reily said. “How is it that no one… not one agent knows anything about what the hell they were after? What they’re using it for? _Who_ it could be?”

They came into her militant speech with Scott half carrying Derek and Stiles wobbling in on shaking legs. They were still soaked. Kira held the vial of paralytic goo as Layla whirled on them.

“What the hell are you all doing? I should--”

Stiles raised a hand to cut her off, as Kira steered him towards the nearest seat. He breathed out as Scot lowered Derek, frozen, into another chair.

“What the hell happened to you?” Alex asked, holding an ice pack to his head.

“Kanima,” Stiles explained. “Treading in the pool for two hours.”

“What the hell is a Kanima?” Layla asked and glared at Derek. “And why the fuck aren’t you moving?”

“Because he’s paralyzed,” Stiles said as Kira held up the vial.

“Whatever this goo is, got all over his neck and paralyzed him,” Kira said. “Why weren’t informed that there was something like that at the embassy is besides the point.”

Layla sneered, “That’s the thing about being on the front line, you know what we tell you.”

Stiles snorted, “Yeah… and now it’s gone.”

She said nothing at that as Stiles regarded Alex, “What happened to you?”

“Nasty spell,” Alexander said. “Whoever broke in was carrying a magical punch, but now he’s dead so...”

Stiles nodded, “Someone that the Kanima could actually...bow down to.”

“Bow down?” Layla asked.

Derek spoke up then, glaring hard at Layla, “The kanima is a mutation of the lycan gene, caused by inner turmoil that is unresolved, unacknowledged. It’s a manifestation of the subconscious.”

Stiles didn’t bother to chip in that it seeks a master to relieve the burden of guilt of having to deal with its demons.

“If it gets a master, one with foul intentions...It could spell problems.”

Another woman, Stiles barely recognized her from the class above his own, “So we kill it.”

Stiles rolled his eyes as Kira stepped forward.

“We can’t just _kill_ it. Barring the fact that we don’t know where it is. We don’t know who it is…”

Scott crossed his arms, “Why was something like that even being held here in the first place?”

Layla said nothing, “This is top priority. If you all value your badges and your quickly derailing career you will locate and recapture the kanima.”

Stiles shook his head, he smelled a cover up and he bet that whoever the kanima was became such due to whatever twisted scheme the Alliance, or at least some faction of the alliance had cooked up.

When Layla left, Stiles made a sound and looked to Scott. Derek watched the look pass between them, before Scott, lifted Derek off the chair.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re going to do research,” Scott said and looked back to the rest of the teams present. “We’re heading to the embassy to see if we can find something more on the kanima and maybe find out who it is. You’re welcome to come.”

“No thanks, fresh meat,” the woman said and checked her gun. “I’ll do hunting the old fashioned way. Come on, John.”

Her partner, Stiles guessed a panther shifter followed her out the door and Scott didn’t waste another second but followed after Kira and Stiles as they talked quick scientific words.

“We’ll need to do a panel, maybe get a DNA match and run it through the system.”

“We have access to stuff like that?” Stiles asked.

“Maybe and if not, I’m sure we can ask for some help.”

Scott set Derek in a chair and wheeled him towards his own station. It had been almost unspoken that Stiles and Kira would work together and he and Derek would work together during the research. Stiles and Kira went to convince the crime lab to run the tests and may have used a bit of slyness to convince the lab technician to listen to the asian beauty. It was easy, leaning over the table, a toss of her hair and a sexy smile.

“ _Please Amari… I’d be eternally grateful…_ ”

He being the macho man that was too squeamish to become a handler puffed with pride and consented to running the tests and getting them to her as soon as possible.

With that secured, Stiles headed towards the embassy library and began to bury himself in the mountain of books on mutations such as the kanima. Sometime around two a.m. Scott brought him a huge cup of coffee, a sandwich and the fact that Kira had the results.

“Can’t find them in our system though.”

Stiles sighed, “Restricted or just non-existent?”

“Not sure.”

Stiles grabbed his books, checked them out and followed them to where the results were being displayed near their four desks. Derek’s eyes flickered across the screen.

“Derek says that mutations like this are the result of a mingled line and some serious turmoil usually…”

“I’d come across that too,” Stiles said as they reached the screen.

The goo had some characteristics of a certain kind of lycan. They weren’t really native to Beacon Hills, but the number of possibilities had been reduced significantly from billions to maybe a million.

“Any thoughts?” Kira asked. “Unless we’re going to go interview all these people…”

“There’s no other way to narrow this down?” Scott asked.

“We’d be better off hunting them the old fashioned way.”

“A kanima unshifted wouldn’t smell the same as when they’re shifted.”

Scott took up a marker to the board, pacing as Kira leaned against the desk, Derek sat beside.

“Facts about the Kanima,” Scott started drawing the words across the board.

Kira rattled off the few she knew, Derek add and Stiles watched the list take form. Trauma, usually emotional, mixed blood lines…

“Self-crisis…” Stiles said after a moment and began typing up search criteria: sexual assault, child abuse, adoptions--

“Really tragic loss of career,” Kira offered. “Fired or something.”

Stiles added it and clicked enter. The pool had shrunk significantly.

“Those accounted for…”

Again another shrinking and soon they were down to a hundred possible suspects.

“Cross check the death database,” Scott said. “With any luck some of them are dead or incapacitated in some way.”

He nodded and did so, they were down to seventy-eight candidates for the kanima.

“It’s not the best list, but it’s a pretty good one,” Scott said. “Better than the billions.”

Stile added another criteria: relation to the alliance.

“If they were being housed in the embassy, someone had to know about it.”

Then cross checking the logs of students and entrances to the embassy within the last forty to fifty years, the odds were looking up. But they would have to get it down a lot more if they were going to get anywhere before Layla had all of their badges up on her wall.

“Any thoughts Derek?” Kira asked after a moment, he was still stone still, but his eyes flickered across the board.

“Anyone not in counseling,” he said. “Most Kanima come about from childhod trauma or issues that aren’t even acknowledge. Therapy usually makes that kind of out of the question.”

Stiles nodded and tapped into the police database and the local mental health registry. The pool didn’t shift in the slightest. They would have to focus on the pool they had and tentatively work out. It would be best. So they split the pool into three and sat at their desks. Scott sat with Derek if only because Stiles was faster on his own and obviously something had transpired between the two of them and whatever it was wouldn’t be easily resolved.

 


	8. A Different Strain Made From the Best.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Again, Stiles does things that isn't exactly certifiably human. Someone get this man a genetics and spiritual test please? Lydia x Jackson... yet they're a thing. Also fun threats in the beloved jeep... oh Derek, won't you ever learn?

Derek had never been more pissed off in his life. Sitting completely still for more than four hours wouldn’t have been that bad if he’d been able to at least help, but no. Of course not. Even when he’d managed to get moving, his computer skills were so rusty and so far behind that he was better of letting Scott search for whatever came to mind. It had pissed him off to no end, but eventually they called it quits when Derek could move completely and they headed to their separate residences without much else to say. Derek didn’t sleep, instead he headed to the site of the Hale House to meet the man that he would be going over the plans with and did his best to not growl. The meeting went well, he’d expanded the plans significantly from the original Hale House to accommodate the growth of the family and the numbers he was anticipating.

He wanted there to be more than enough room for everyone so no one felt like they were in each other’s pockets even when they grew. The last children to be born in the Hale family were three and two years old, all ten of them. It was odd and coincided with the death of Peter Hale and Derek’s withdrawl from the alliance... and from the family. But as he knew, he hadn’t been the only one fumbling around in the dark.

When Peter died, one after another, his older cousins and relatives began to rent out their properties and began to live in apartments around the city. Some didn’t bother to sign a lease, but bounced between the relatives that had relatively steady places to live. They took more time out of the country, traveling for work for anything that would get them out of Beacon Hills. His younger cousins, from elementary all the way up to college were floundering, struggling with the shift in the family and as much as Derek and others tried to be there and encourage the family to be together… Going as far to organize a trip for Christmas, it wasn’t enough. The Hale Fire had been a blow that the family never really recovered from… he only hoped that maybe this would be the first step in getting the family back together.

No matter how productive his day had been, he’d managed all of three hours of sleep before someone was calling him telling him that he was needed and that they were on patrol. He scrubbed the sleep from his eyes and headed towards his car, driving towards the embassy to meet up with Stiles and the team that would be leading them that night: Blue Cross. Derek wanted to groan. He’d hated them when he was on the force, their swaggering cocky attitude and knew for sure--

“It’s the _Hale!_ ” The handler said with a laugh. “Oh how would Talia feel to see her beloved son reduced to partnering with a first year handler?”

He felt his claws extending before he snarled, “ _It’s Alpha Talia. You are unfit to even say her name and the next time I hear it fall from your lips, I will rip your voicebox out of your throat._ ”

His partner, a panther stepped forward with her languid grace, “We’re in control here, pup don’t forget that?”

_“Test me and see what your control means to me.”_

Her eyes flashed and before another thing could be said, Stiles was flagging a peace sign and getting them to head off to patrol. Blue Cross climbed into the Alliance SUV as Stiles and Derek climbed into Stiles’s jeep. They had a two-way radio and were doing their best to keep the peace… at least Stiles was. After all, Derek may have clout, but Stiles was a first year handler and the first year usually defined your career: who liked you, who didn’t, what you’ve done…

“We’re still probationary,” Stiles hissed. “And this is my first year. Could you not piss of anyone else at least until you’re someone else’s partner?”

Derek glared at him and his eyes flashed the most beautiful blue he’d ever seen. Stiles’s eyes widened.

_What?_

He’d heard about what the different colors meant. Yellow was usually reserved for betas and omegas with no real distinction between the two for each group. Red was alpha… but blue? He’d never heard of that… Let alone it changing within a few moments.

Derek drew back, growling low and turning his eyes to the scenery passing by.

“We’ve been given order to check out this building. Draw your gun and get ready, we’ll go in together. Make sure you have your back-up radio.”

The handler’s voice came through and Stiles pulled a bit of the way away from the abandoned warehouse. They entered together, shifter’s first to get a sense of any presences near, handlers behind and split up, creeping down the corridors and listening for any stir in the surrounding area. Derek went ahead and they both froze, spinning to face the threat to see two people. A shifter and a mage if the cloud of light around his gun was any indication.

_Fuck._

“Uriel,” Derek growled and began moving towards them. “What--”

Stiles shoved him as the blast rushed towards them and threw up a small shield of magic to deflect it towards the other pairing. Shots fired as the ducked around the corner rushing out of the corridor to the nearest open door. Stiles fired through the cloud of magic and gun spray and heard the satisfying sound of pain. He’d hit at least three people as Stiles lifted the radio to his mouth.

“ _Blue Cross, can you hear me Blue Cross? Blue Cross!”_

Derek grabbed his arm and pulled him along, as quick as he could manage when Stiles realized that there was something wrong.

“What is it?”

“They’re dead,” Derek said. “I can smell them. Probably got dropped on before they could even call for backup.”

Derek pulled him along the wall, motioning for absolute silence and to slow his heart rate down as much as possible.

“If it’s loud, they’ll find us…”

Stiles swallowed and closed his eyes, trying to ease the pounding of his heart. Derek guided him through the dark and kept him shielded behind him as they snuck out the back of the building and rushed around the sides to reach the front. They heard footsteps chasing them but it was too late, they rounded the corner and climbed into Stiles’s jeep. It started up, maybe by the sheer grace of it nearing twilight, and they were off. Derek speaking into the radio.

“ _Night Riders, can you hear me? Night Riders come in.”_

“ _Nogitsune?_ ” Kira asked and Derek could have cursed, hearing Scott’s manic driving in the background. _“The Night Riders are dead. We got ambushed at this random warehouse we were assigned to. Where are you? Is everyone alright?”_

Derek cursed, “ _What is your codename anyway?”_

 _“Kite Rider,”_ she told him. “ _Where are you? Rendezvous. We’re--Shit!”_

He heard the firing of the gun as Stiles turned another corner and merged into traffic, it was late, so there wasn’t much, but given that they were being tracked he didn’t have much choice. Praying to just make the next light, before the huge truck came by. They did pulled to a stop until as Kira disconnected and reconnected over the radio.

“ _Rendezvous at the pet clubhouse._ ”

“ _Roger. Meet up in thirty._ ”

They disconnected and Stiles took a deep breath looking at Derek who was ghastly pale.

“You got hit didn’t you?” Stiles asked slowly.

Derek growled, “If you weren’t so slow, I wouldn’t have.”

Stiles’s eyes narrowed, “Who tried to run into a mage’s spell not knowing what the hell the spell did?”

He growled, his eyes flashing blue again, but Stiles cut him off, “If I hadn’t been there, you wouldn’t even be talking right now. Just a splat on the wall. A very broody, angry splat wearing a stupid black henley.”

“Shut up.” He growled, rolling his sleeve up to get a better look at the injury.

The bullet had lodged itself into his flesh, broken probably. He didn’t have much time and every instinct in him was telling him bite his arm off and eliminate the poison. He’d followed enough instincts that night he was sure.

Running into a spell like an idiot, had he been that out of touch? Apparently, his run in with being feral had made him lose every sense of logic he possessed. He didn’t even have his gun in his hand, but had wolfed out immediately.

“Let me see.”

“Shut up and start the fucking car!”

Stiles huffed, “That’s a wolfsbane bullet and it’s already started to dissolve. You’re not in any position to order me around. I could drag your ass out and leave you for dead. Probationary period over-- Hell, I might even get a medal for getting rid of you!”

Derek felt his nostrils flare and his claws wanted to extend, but couldn’t so he settled for what he could do.

“Start the car…. or I’m going to rip your throat out-- with my teeth.”

Stiles paused for a moment, thinking for sure that he would get out of the car and drag Derek out, just to teach him a lesson. But he knew he was more likely to drop him off at the hospital and haul his ass out there. Still out of his jeep, but at least it would be somewhere near he could get help. At the same time, there would be nothing worse for the hospital, or Melissa, than to have and angry Lycan in their care, so he started the car and pulled away from the curve. Not to mention, he was sure that the hospital didn’t have any anyone on hand to fix a wolfsbane bullet injury.

Derek lay back against the seats, mostly grateful that the threat worked even if he didn’t really mean it. He wasn’t even sure if he would have enough strength to carry out but whatever was going on behind those usually calm whiskey eyes said onward to wherever the “Pet Clubhouse” was.

They drove until it grew dark and Stiles was more than sure that they weren’t being followed. Scott and Kira said they’d meet up with them as soon as they’d gotten rid of their tail in thirty minutes and had checked in to tell them that it would be at least another ten.

“Where are we?” Derek gasped through the pulsing in his arm. It tingled painfully.

“Somewhere they won’t look for us, now come on.”

He didn’t get a chance to round the car, as covertly parked in the alley, behind a huge dumpster as it was, before Derek was sliding out. Rather than argue or try to assist the other, Stiles pulled out his lock pick and twisted the lock open.

Derek limped after him as Stiles got the door to the operating room, whispering for him to move as quickly as possible while glancing back to make sure there was no one coming through the doors. They’d lost them for now.

It was the only place that was safe enough and was so bogged down with animal smells that they wouldn’t be found. Also the only place Stiles could drag Derek’s quickly weakening body into given that Derek was about thirty to forty pounds heavier than Stiles. Derek was getting paler by the moment and mumbling, stumbling about his plan to get the bullet out of his arm while Stiles was looking through the cabinets.

“Stay awake,” Stiles said grimacing and looking for gloves, forceps, tongs, alcohol, anything and going through his knowledge of wolfsbane and silver bullets used by the other sides of the Alliance.

Exploding, shattering rounds, definitely laced with aconite. Shattered to the point of absorption in the blood-- it couldn’t be liquid because Derek was very much still alive. Meaning the shells were meant to either dissolve or shatter in the body. Heat activated or just against the bone--Aconitum, pseudaconitine, purge and neutralize--he’d need charcoal, a magnet, and ferrous liquid.

“Derek, are you still with me?”

Derek wasn’t listening to him, forcing his eyes shut and pulling his shirt over his head. It was spreading and preferably before his wolf began to get more of an urge to gnaw it off he had to get it take care of.

When Stiles turned around, that where he was: a rubber band tied around his arm, pale, gasping for breath and staring holes into the table. A bone saw right beside him and Stiles blanched at the thought he knew was running through Derek's head. He slid the forceps into his sleeve and put up the act.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“You’re going… to have to cut it off…”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Right now… you need to cut it off.”

Stiles shook his head, “Are you insane?”

“Stiles,” Derek groaned, “Either you cut off my arm or I’m going to cut off your head.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, “You’ve used that construction already, come up with something--”

Derek lashed out and grabbed him by the scruff of his clothing to pull him half across the table and to growl at him. Stiles could smell the infection, the poison setting in and the pain in the growl. But the fact that he still had the strength to move so quickly meant that it wasn’t too late yet. Cutting off his arm would not only be antithetical to his purpose, but would serve to piss him off later and he was pretty sure that even lycan healing wouldn’t grow a whole new arm for him. But it was instinct and Stiles knew what anyone was like injured and running on instinct: irrationally dangerous to themselves… especially shifters...Unfortunately, Mr. Big Bad Wolf in a Leather Jacket would just have to listen to his skinny little twig genius of a partner and let him help.

“Okay, okay, I got it. I’ll do it… just calm down.”

Derek heaved for breath, growling low in pain and annoyance at the skinny thing in his grip. The other was oddly going the route of obeisance. He must know that old saying about injured animals and dying men. Derek sure felt like he was dying. Definitely injured and in pain.

_Off… Off… get it off… cut it off now. Tear it off. Now. Now. Now._

“This isn’t a good idea,” Stiles said. “Can’t you trust me just this once?”

“No!”

His vision blurred and his breathing becoming more difficult. Stiles slipped the forceps down his wrist and into his hand and the IV needle into his other hand as Derek began to loosen his grip. The world swam in his eyes and he did his best to keep steady, but the pain and the burning creeping up his arm, closer to his heart...His heart… if it reached there he’d die. It’d be over. He felt his fangs drop and the claws of his other hand extending. All so natural and _stupid._ His heart was beating faster, spreading the poison faster.

 _Calm down… Calm--_ It had to be now. Had to be--

“Do you find me attractive?”

Derek turned his head at the question, “What-- _FUCK!”_

Derek roared in pain, his eyes flashing blue as Stiles plunged the forceps into the gaping hole in Derek’s arm, clenched the bulk of the bullet, twisted and pulled it free. Derek growled, his legs giving out and he went crashing to the ground, black sticky liquid bubbling from his mouth as Stiles grabbed for the bottle of charcoal and the crash cart, dragging it to the floor with him and straddling Derek’s chest. One knee on his throat, his ankle on Derek’s shoulder and the other knee on his other ankle. Blood dribbled from the edges of the wound as Stiles tore off the positive and negative wires of the paddles and wrapped them around the knife in his pocket. He pulled a large syringe and dumped ferrous IV solution into the bottle of activated charcoal as Derek jerked, growling at him but unable to lift his weight off him. His eyes were glowing blue and angry--the epitome of a wounded animal. Stiles would ask about the obvious lack of grip he had on his animal instincts after the man didn’t die.

“Just stay still dammit!” He hissed at him, tempted to hit him, but he needed him awake as he checked the clarity of the needle, giving it a squirt or two to clear the air and slid the needle into Derek’s vein into the brachial artery and injected the solution. When it was empty, he filled the syringe again to inject more. He slid the IV needle in below the wound, at Derek's wrist and untied the rubber band as Derek cried out. Stiles pressed the length of the knife onto Derek’s skin, turned on the current, and focused using the rushing lycan magic fighting to force the poison out and the magnet to help it along. He almost laughed with glee when the blackness in Derek’s veins followed the movement of Stiles’s knife down his arm.

The world was growing dimmer and he felt the prick of a needle and slowly the world was growing clearer again, the black goo that was coming up his throat stopped and he came to the stunning realization that Stiles was sitting on him and dragging a knife down his arm. The rushing feeling was following his motions he thought, tugging at the pain in his arm. There was the noisome scent of wolfsbane, but no longer of his own imminent death. Another prick of the needle and there was some chalky taste at the back of his mouth.

_What the fuck is he doing?_

Stiles waited until the blood ran pure red from the tube and the wound began to stitch itself closed to consider it a success, but when the hole closed and the ghastly color receded from Derek’s skin he took a breath and fell off Derek to breathe and stare at the puddle of blood, black, and silver. He gave Derek another shot of pure charcoal and breathed.

He was fucking awesome.

***

Scott and Kira rushed into the room somewhere in the middle, praying that they were alright and looking a little worse for wear to see Stiles on top of Derek, the full weight of  him pressing down on Derek.  He fell off to reveal the slow return of color to Derek’s features and the other began to move. Pained groans growing softer and less pained with each heartbeat.

“Holy shit,” Stiles cursed looking over as Derek managed to raise his body up and stare at puddle of blood, charcoal, and silver pieces around where his arm had been injured and was now healing quickly.

“What… the fuck was that?”

“Me,” he breathed on a slight laugh. “Saving your ass.”

Stiles looked over to Scott and Kira in the doorway, leaning against one another for strength and scrambled to his feet to get them to sit down on the metal table and look for something to help stitch up Kira’s wounds.

Scott was already practically healed and all in all Kira was more bruised than injured from being jostled around in the car, shooting out the back window and the like.

“What happened to you two?”

“Ambush, our lead team is dead,” Stiles said offering water from the sink so Kira could take some aspirin.

There’s a sound and Derek is up bare chested and looking through the drawers for something that didn’t smell like death. He found clothes in the locker and left a note telling him he’d get a new jacket and shirt when Derek survived the night. Stiles shook his head.  
“Can you live without a leather jacket?”

Derek gave him a look as Derek, Scott and Stiles went to investigate. The operating room only had one way in and one way out, making it kind of inconvenient for escape, but great for defense. There was a roar from the left that tackled Scott and Stiles aimed only to be tackled as well. Glowing yellow eyes, a child practically prowling after him as the world swam from what Stiles was sure going to be a concussion. He stumbles back over the furniture of the vet’s foyer and slides his hand over his fallen gun, lifting it as it leapt forward.

But the body was slammed into the ground, Derek’s foot in the small of its back. He looked up towards where Stiles had stumbled and was aiming at the child. Their eyes meet for just a second before he crouches and turns the kid over and recognizes him more than immediately.

“James…” He said softly, pressing his hair out of his eyes as Stiles came over.

“You know him?”

“He’s a nephew,” he said and pulled out his phone to call his sister in law. She answered the phone immediately.

“ _Hello? James? Honey?_ ”

“It’s Derek, Brooke, I’ve got James here…”

She let out a breath, “ _Thank goodness, Derek. He was supposed to be home hours ago, but he never called. What happened?_ ”

Derek winced seeing the cuffs around the boy’s wrists throat and giving it a savage rip and shaking his head.

“ _I think we need to talk._ ”

“ _Anything, of course. Whenever… where are you? I can come to you…”_

“No need, I’ll get him to the embassy and you can pick him up there. I’ll come by later.”

“ _Alright Derek… thank you dear… he’s all I have left.”_

Derek did his best not to let his jaw tremble at the sound of that, “ _You have us._ I’ll see you soon. Love you.”

He hung up then, scooped James into his arms and followed Scott and Kira towards the doors as Scott cuffed the menace that had attacked him. This one seemed significantly older, probably a high schooler with the same cuffs around his wrists.

“Coincidence?” Scott asked.

“Not even close,” Stiles said. “These cuffs are monogrammed with Beacon Hills school crests. Basketball and Lacrosse to be specific.”

Derek knew that much. James had practically idolized him for years and joined the basketball team as soon as he was able. He kept James close to him on the drive to the embassy. James woke up screaming, thrashing and Derek held him still, soothing him with low rumbles of his voice.

“A’pella…” _You are safe._ “James.”

“Uncle Derek?” Derek nodded, stroking his hair until the trembling eased.

“You’re safe.”

“Where am I?”

“I’m driving you to the embassy to meet your mom… you’ve been missing for the last few hours. Do you remember anything?”

He shook his head before burying his face against Derek’s chest.

“It’s good to see you, Uncle Derek.”

He smiled at that and kissed the top of his head, “It’s good to see you too, rugrat. I’m sorry it’s been a while.”

“You owe me a game.”

He laughed, “Alright. We’ll play pick up some time.”

“Soon?”

“Soon,” Derek conceded.

When the arrived, Brooke was already there, sitting in the foyer gripping something hot in her hands. Most of the embassy recognized her as the wife of another late Hale who’d died in the Hale Fire. She stood when they opened and James ran right to his Mom.

“I’m sorry Mom,” he said squeezing her tightly. “I’m sorry.”

She shook her head, “As long as you’re alright. As long as you’re safe.”

She looked up to Derek and pulled him against her as well, “Thank you…”

Derek shook his head, “We are family.”

There’s a small, sad smile on her lips as she pulled away and the other teenager, significantly bigger than James blinked through the world.

“Jim?” He asked, “What are we doing at the embassy?”

James did the honors of introducing Derek and his mother to the teen as quickly as possible. There was something in the interaction that made Derek smile and give the teen an extra threatening look.

“We have a few questions to ask before you all head home, if that’s alright,” Derek said. “Well get someone to call your parents and let them know where you are.”

The boy, Alex, said that there wasn’t a need, he lived alone, a ward of the lycan elders. No one was missing him and that made him suspicious. Kira took them and Brooke to a conference room so she could ask them questions while Derek was on the phone. Scott hung back with him as Stiles went to aid with the interrogation. Kira’s shorthand was legendary and Stiles knew which questions needed to be asked.

Derek got in touch with Natalie of the Lycan Foster program to ask a barrage of questions about curfew and Alex in particular only to find out that he was only a year older than James, in the grade above. A victim of poachers, he’d lost his family in Pennsylvania and had been bounced around the states before ending up in Beacon Hills.

_A Lycan without a pack…_

James… essentially was a Lycan without a pack… as the Hale pack was practically dissolved.

The kanima...had to be a Lycan without a pack...

Stiles and Kira emerged from the conference room and they all sent them off. Brooke offered to take Alex home and Derek gave her a look that said they were going to have another conversation later. They headed back to their cubicles with a sigh to regard the Beacon Hills map and add the bands to the evidence of the case. They added Beacon Hills sports teams to the criteria and looked into the school itself.

“The coach of the basketball team,” Derek said. “Changed midway through my high school career. To that guy.”

Kira pulled up his profile, “No tickets, no nothing… the guy is squeaky clean.”

Scott’s fingers typed as Stiles’s eyes flickered across the screen between the faces and the information Stiles gotten through from the interview.

“Derek,” Stiles said after a moment. “You’re pretty close with your family aren’t you?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Think you could get Brooke to tell you is James has been acting weird lately?”

“I don’t need to get her to tell me, I know that already,” he said. “She’s been telling me that he’s started sleep walking and it’s been getting more frequent and more distant. Vivid daylight dreams too...he’s been complaining of headaches as well.”

“Very slow magical influence, an induction of magic could do that, pulling strings on the subconscious.”

Derek frowned, “What’s your point?”

“A master of a kanima must be able to manipulate the subconscious of the kanima in order to control it well when it’s shifted and when it isn’t.”

Derek felt his stomach drop, “Are you telling me someone is using my nephew as a guinea pig?”

“At the very least practice.”

He felt sick and pissed off all at once, it was all rolling together and quickly becoming a source of rage. It was then that Kira populated an old house, dilapidated at best, on the screen.

“Apparently… the coach of the basketball team has a thing of extremely old houses… in extremely magical places… perfect for containment spells or… worse.”

Stiles nodded, “You think we have enough for a warrant?”

“At least for a search, yes.”

“Good enough for now,” Scott said. “Let’s go.”

Honestly, they had enough for an arrest at the least on the basis of suspicion but a search would do. When night fell they were ready, and there was a face none of them expected to see.

 

She looked up, wearing a bulletproof magic vest and looking as pretty and as fragile as the last time any of them had seen her. Stiles had had a crush on her since about the third grade, but it had all but vanished once they’d spent more time together. After Jackson had gone missing, she’d all but shut down.

“I’m coming with you.”

They looked around. Lydia had gotten into the academy, graduated but had gone into magical research instead. She wasn’t exactly field trained.

“What?”

“I know who the Kanima is,” Lydia said. “And if you want him to turn into a Lycan instead, I’m coming.”

Stiles and Lydia’s eyes met for a moment and before anyone could protest he said, “We could use someone versed in defensive spells and undoing mind control.”

She blinked as Stiles smiled at her, “Load up and get in the jeep.”

She nodded, arming her handgun and climbing into Stiles’s jeep.

“That’s not your call to make!” Layla yelled.

“She’s the best magical researcher you’ve got. We’ll need someone to tell us about what possible barrier could be around the place.”

Layla growled as the got in, Nogitsune, Kite Riders and Lydia. There had been many days he’d hoped to get Lydia Martin into his jeep, this hadn’t been what he imagined but he was sure that his high school self was still punching the air in victory.

“Tell us what you know,” Kira said.

Lydia swallowed, “He’s my fiancé… Jackson Whittemore.”

***

By the time they arrived a few hundred yards from the building, Lydia had spilled the whole story and most of Jackson’s life story too. He’d been in Texas, that’s where his birth parents were from and adopted and he’s always had an issue with that. Then he was a part of an after school program coached by their main suspect and when he came of age he shifted into a kanima. His adoptive parents panicked, giving him up to the alliance to study at the end of high school, thinking there was a cure right after he’d been accepted into the academy. They were lycans but had no real education with the nuances of the Lycan gene or spirit. He’d gone on a mission and hadn’t come back. Lydia had thought he was dead for years until she brought in to help study him and learned what had happened. He’d been stuck, practically feral and passed through a myriad of hands before he was recovered again.

Stiles had a feeling that the alliance was doing some covert research on Jackson as well, but didn’t say so. After all, if they could get him to turn into a Lycan, they wouldn’t be able to study him anymore. So they climbed out of the car and let Lydia come, provided that she stay between them where they could protect her efficiently.

They reached the territory and once Lydia disabled the barrier and then the next and got them in, Stiles turned to them.

“Maybe we should split up,” Stiles said looking between the five of them. “Kira and I, Scott and Derek. It’ll be easier for two lycans to back each other up—“

“I’m not here for Scott,” Derek said. “I’m here for you.”

What an odd thing to be said as he was sure that Derek hated every breath he took and resented every moment that they were together.  Stiles felt his breath die.

“We’ll take Lydia,” Derek said. “Scott and Kira go left, we’ll head downstairs, White Hook and Blackhawk take the other directions. Anyone encounter trouble, signal.”

They nodded, Lydia taking deep breaths as Derek opened his senses, gripping the gun and Stiles kept his heart rate low. The house squeaks and rattles and as they creep down the stairs the hear nothing, but the door leading out is open and from there they hear the growling of Lycan and the hissing of a snake.

Derek and Scott go first to get a good look and Derek feels his temper flare.

“Freeze--”

The agent that came around the house, screamed as the Kanima leapt on to him and then his partner, paralyzing them and sliding towards the next heartbeats when Derek and Scott rushed out to stop it. It snarled, turning on them and prepared to attack, its movements stuttered as Lydia followed them staring between Stiles who stood in front of her, aiming his gun at the Kanima, and Kira whose sword was poised to strike. The other agents managed to wrestle the ringleader down and they stood in a stalemate. The kanima started, looking at Lydia, familiar and unfamiliar.

Had it been so long since he’d seen her or was it the last of Coach Julian’s control on his mind… or all the others? And all the pain.

“Jackson,” she said softly, stepping around Stiles to come closer. “Jackson, baby, it’s me.”

A hand out to him, the one that wore the ring, she’d never taken it off. It gleamed even in the darkness.

Shiny, intensely shiny thing that tugged at the back of his mind. Images of sunlight, the sound of music… the hum of nervous electricity in his veins. The roar and pain… then there was the haze but his eyes stayed fix on the impossibly shiny thing around pale fingers topped with multiple colors and tiny butterflies resting on cupcakes.

“It’s me honey, you’re not alone now, I promise. You were never alone...I was always looking… I will always look for you…”

She stepped closer, the kanima still watching her, eyes frozen on her, but unable to move. The yellow eyes zoned out, growing foggy and glazed over as it stared at Lydia’s hand.

“Jackson,” she said gently, now close enough to touch, her hand fell on his shoulder. Her hand tingling immediately from the latent goo cocoon they’d awoken him from.

“Jackson? Baby? It’s Lydia. It’s Lydia, honey.”

A hiss came from his lips.

“I love you,” she said, sliding her hands up to his scaly jaw, her eyes burning. “I love you babe. I’ll always love you.”

Hot, wet tears pooled at the corner of his eyes as Lydia felt the heaviness traveling up her limbs. Their eyes met and the haze shuddered.

Ginger red hair, richer than in his memories, curly… the way it was at night right out of a shower… The way he’d loved it. Ruby red lips speaking softly to him, on his, yelling at him, screaming for him, promising him the world. His name… his name on ruby red lips.

“I love you, Jackson.” She said. “I love you.”

Stiles kept his gun trained, Kira didn’t move and Scott and Derek didn’t budge, watching for one wrong move. The hundred wrong moves that could have happened…. If it worked great, but Stiles was never one for one plan only.

“I am your master! Kill her.”

His arm raised back, but Lydia didn’t move. She didn’t flinch, holding his face in her hands, still and sure. Solid and trusting, believing and open to him… to him alone. Only… his name on ruby red lips… What was his name? He couldn’t hear or understand her, listening through the haze. But her face, that impossibly beautiful face and the gentle hands on his face, the slow, even cadence of her voice. Not a tremble, not a stumble… nothing. The way she’d always stood in his memory, in her, in her flats, bare foot and naked before him staring at him through the moonlight… the tentative touches and steadfast stance… the look in her eyes.

Ruby red lips that called his name.

“Jackson,” she said gently. “You’re safe now.”

The hand fell slowly through the air. Scales receded, slowly, green skin becoming lighter, the handsome tan, his eyes changed, his eyes growing darker, more recognizable, clearer.

Ruby red lips that said “Jackson” as if to raise him from nothing.

“ _Lydia…_ ” he gasped and she broke, sobbing, falling forward on to him. He didn’t move, catching her, his arms around her waist and blessedly naked as the scales faded to nothing. “Lydia…”

She nodded as his hands came up to tangle in her hair.

“Could’ve killed you,” he forced out, his tongue still stumbling over the words as his mind cleared slowly and he looked around. The prone bodies on the ground, the prone bodies he’d left behind across the united states, flickering in his mind and his jaw tensed and he stepped back.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said gently, squeezing him as much as she could. “None of it… was your fault.”

His jaw trembled and he shook his head, burying his face in her shoulder, his hands in her hair.

Stiles lowered his gun as Derek retracted his claws. Lydia pulled off her scarf to wrap around Jackson’s hips.

"We... have a lot to talk about don't we?"

Lydia nodded, "That can wait until you're dressed and had a decent meal."

Jackson would have kissed her but wasn't sure where they stood. It had been years hadn’t it? It had to have been as her scent had changed if only a little bit. Lydia had grown into more of herself as a woman, as a person. She wasn't the prim queen hiding behind a pretty face. Letting her full personality shine, like the tiny cupcakes and butterflies painted on her nails. She'd stopped lightening her hair so it was now a richer ginger color...and she'd let it grow in its naturally curly state. She was wearing converse that looked as though they'd had better days… She was the Lydia he'd spend nights talking to about everything in full view.

Jackson rode back in a squad car with Lydia beside him, twining their hands together. Stiles, Kira, Derek and Scott piled into the jeep and drove back to the embassy. With their car shot all to hell, Kira hitched a ride with Derek in the Camaro. He promised to get her home safely.

Scott and Stiles stayed behind to finish paperwork for each of their teams. Scott climbed into Stiles’s jeep. Dawn was creeping by as they drove down the street.

The little blue jeep pulled to the curve and Stiles stares at the steering wheel. They weren’t far from Scott's apartment, but Stiles needed just a second. The smell of blood and sweat fills the car and he’s not entirely sure where he’s stopped, but Stiles knows it’s not home for either of them.

“Stiles?” Scott asks from the passenger seat. “You alright?”

He nods, “Just… what a wild night.”

Scott nodded, it was like that more often than not but he looked at Stiles who took a deep breath. His hands were shaking and his heart stuttering. Scott reached out to his shoulder.

“Breathe with me,” he said taking a deep coaxing breath, steering Stiles into breathing deeply with him.

Slow deep breaths and the edges of panic edged off. They were the real reason he'd learned to control  his heart rhythms, tricking his body into thinking it was calm, made him calm, but it didn't  work all the time.

“You were awesome, now let’s get us both home so we can sleep.”

Scott cranked up the car again and nods, driving to Scott and Kira’s apartment and waving him goodbye before heading to his own apartment complex and dragging his body through the early morning light beams up the stairs, past the broken elevator, and to his apartment. He strips at the front door and carries it all to the laundry room. He knows it will take at least three washes to get all the blood out but turns on the first cycle and heads to the bathroom.

The hot water is a blessing.


	9. Energy Connects—Heart Beating Fast:

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Official! Stiles and Derek have some sort of weird pact going and.... the Alliance is shady

They sleep for at least a full day. Kira and Scott for longer due to her injuries before they managed to get back to the embassy. Jackson had been detained and dressed for the last 48 hours in a cell with Lydia who refused to leave and had barricaded it.

"Lydia," Jackson said, amused and indulgent. "Let them in."

She changed the ward enough for them to enter but stood in front of Jackson. Layla glared at her.

"Agent Martin...This is not--"

Lydia crossed her arms as Jackson stood to place a hand on her shoulder and kiss her cheek. She looked at him before he looked at Layla.

“You want to talk to me, I understand that.”

“Test you actually,” she said glancing at Lydia. “Kanima is a rare mutation and it needs to be studied.”

“You’ve studied him enough,” Lydia hissed. “It’s been at least five years.”

“What year is it?” Jackson asked.

“4160,” Layla said and Jackson felt his stomach drop, looking at Lydia.

“It’s been seven years?” Jackson said in horror. “And you…”

Lydia gave him a leveling look, “And?”

Jackson swallowed past the lump in his throat somehow and looked to Layla as the door swung open again and it was a cheerful looking Stiles.

“Agent Stilinski, what are--”

“His family wanted to see him.”

Jackson’s heart stuttered seeing them in the doorway, warm Lycan eyes looking at him. They had no pack, but were strong enough together at least that's what they'd thought. They’d adopted Jackson when they found out that due to an accident, Mrs. Whittemore couldn’t have kids. He remembered them, remembered being with them for most of his life. Remembered wanting to make them proud, to be good enough, to always be better than good enough because that wasn’t enough for people that had taken him in and had given him everything.

The same people that had signed him over to the Alliance…

But there they were staring at him, eyes watery and hopeful. Mr. Whittemore, Alan Jacob Whittemore, looked more angry than anything, but it wasn’t directed at him. Elena Whittemore crossed the room with no regards to the barrier between them, running into it and placing her hands against it.

“Jackson,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry...This wasn’t supposed to happen…”

Alan advanced on Layla growling at her as his eyes flashed golden and Stiles thought for sure that he would find a sure ally in Derek Hale…. Even better that they were distantly related.

Jackson stepped back, sitting on the bed as Elena spoke, “We were scared, Jackson. They said that they could help… said they knew what was happening… Knew how to help you...They didn’t tell us you were still alive… They said you’d gone missing, they brought us your things from camp and that was it. But we didn’t believe it… and we waited for you to come home.”

Lydia swallowed looking at Jackson who didn’t seem to be listening to any of it before she sat down beside him and took his hand.  She remembered coming over to the house, setting the table for four and always glancing towards the empty seat at the table, wishing more than anything that Jackson would come home… It had been that way for seven years. The weekly dinners had dwindled to monthly, but she came faithfully, bringing Jackson’s favorite cake… the only cake she knew how to make. They’d each choke down a slice with bitter tears.

Jackson took a deep breath to look up at Elena and then to Alan who’d come to join her against the barrier.

“ _Son…_ ”

He flinched at the word and squeezed Lydia’s hand. It would take time they knew that, they only hoped that they would get that time with him now.

“Exciting news broadcaster, Stiles Stilinski has exciting news to broadcast,” Stiles announced holding up a piece of paper. “How exciting you ask? Very exciting as it pertains to one Jackson Whittemore.”

Jackson looked up glaring at the oddly bubbly skinny young man in the room, he vaguely remembers maybe putting someone that looked like him in a locker multiple times while he was in high school, but he wasn’t sure.

“In my hand I hold the agreement between Elena and Alan Whittemore and the Alliance regarding Jackson’s recovery. I also hold the contract signed by Jackson when entering the academy as well as the bi-laws of the Alliance Force. Per all of these records, the Alliance is required to pay you for wages lost during your time kidnapped and or missing as well as freeing you from service.”

Layla’s jaw dropped, “What?”

“Unless you want to outright say that you’ve kidnapped one of your own and have been performing horrible experiments on him and allowed a very dangerous predator to escape…”

Layla’s mouth opened and closed and she glared at him, “You’re walking a very thin line.”

Stiles shrugged, “I think I’ve got enough balance for a tight rope act…”

She growled as Ambassador Deaton appeared to back up the statement and Jackson swallowed looking between his parents and Lydia.

“All the people… that I…”

Ambassador Deaton shook his head, “Anything that you did while under the control of anyone else was not your fault and on behalf of the Alliance, I can only offer our apologies and the promise that you will be well taken care of and given anything you need in the days ahead.”

Jackson swallowed and looked at Lydia who only smiled and squeezed his hand, “You aren’t alone.”

Jackson nodded slowly, “I… don’t want to lose my job… So…”

Ambassador Deaton smiled, “When you are ready, you can always return to the force.”

Jackson nodded slowly, not exactly sure when he would be ready and squeezed Lydia’s hand.

“Take down the barrier, Lydia.”

It fell and his parents stepped across it tentatively. Elena’s jaw trembled perceptibly as she extended her arms and approached him.

“May I?” She asked in a watery voice.

Jackson nodded slowly and wasn’t sure what to expect, but when she wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled him gently, squeezing him to her chest and crying into his shoulder. Her scent washed over his senses earning a deep contented rumble from his chest. Home, pack, family…

 _Safe_.

“ _Jackson,_ ” she whispered, stroking his hair. “ _Jackson, sweetheart...You’re home…_ ”

He swallowed and closed his eyes, breathing her in. Relief and the smell of sorrow slowly ebbing to happiness. It had soaked into her clothes, became a part of her scent, tainted the smell of apples and vanilla with a bitter note. She’d been mourning, fretting, worrying about him for seven years. That same bitterness had been in Lydia’s scent as well. He found it in Alan’s as well.

He climbed in the car with his parents with a promise from Lydia to come as soon as she was able to and kissed his forehead.

“They love you,” she said. “Be sure to eat.”

He nodded slowly and let her hand go, fearful eyes looking at her as the car started up and they drove towards the Whittemore house.

It hadn’t changed as far as he could remember. The same luxury and the like, the same feel of the place, but there was a bitterness in the house. The smell of it had been tainted with seven years of mourning. He climbed the steps to the front door and they followed behind him a few steps behind him, watching him explore the house that he’d grown up in as if he’d never been there before except in dreams.

It was uncanny and a tad unsettling, but when he arrived in the dining room he smelled something different. There was a warm bitter tint to the room. Like hope and despair mingled together. He stood at the head of the table, his fingers following the grooves of the ornate chairs as he passed he could tell that only three were sat in regularly and one was oddly devoid of scent entirely. He stopped there take the seat, oddly compelled to do so and look across the empty table.

It was his seat… They’d kept it as his seat… Why this...He turned to see the entrance to the kitchen. Because it was closes to the kitchen… He could dash and get Lydia...His hand slid to the seat beside his and swallowed. It was Lydia’s seat, her scent had soaked into the chair, the wood, the small square of space had soaked up her scent. Across were Alan and Elena’s seats…

Had they always…

“You’ve been home more…” Jackson said slowly looking up at them standing in the doorway, watching him. “A lot more.”

They nodded, “We thought… if we were here… that it would be easier… we could… be here when you came home…”

“But your jobs…”

“On hold,” Elena said. “I’ve trained my assistant to take the trips in my place.”

“As have I.”

Jackson nodded and got up from the table to head further into the house and finally ascended the stairs to his room and all he could smell was Lydia. It was dizzying and comforting all at once.

“She slept over, practically moved in for the first month…” Elena said from outside the door. “Still does around your birthday… in August, holidays…”

Jackson swallowed, “What about her family?”

“They were… they were killed…while in a different territory.”

Jackson nodded and sat down on the bed, before looking up at them, “How… much have I missed?”

Elena shook her head, “The same seven years we missed with you.”

Jackson wasn’t sure if he believed that, but they suggested that he get some rest. He relaxed back on the bed and breathed slowly, the scent of Lydia growing over the course of seven years filling his senses. The sheets were clean and still filled with her scent as if she’d been sleeping in it earlier that day.

When she came up the stairs later that night and crawled into bed with him, he was still awake. She lay her head over his heart and twined their fingers together, curling up together the way they used to.

“Are we…”

She nuzzled her face into his chest and kissed the side of his neck, ruby red lips abrogating his doubt and he settled into sleep.

***

It was days after Jackson was sent home with Lydia and his parents when Stiles got the call. Kira was healing up well, Scott had never left her side, and they’d been given an alliance car while their car was in the shop. Stiles had discovered a few bruises, but was feeling much better.

“Meet me in the square,” Derek said into the phone and hung up.

Stiles wasn’t sure if he should just not to go just to be an ass, but he didn’t. Instead, he climbed into his jeep and drove towards the meeting place. The streets were alive with people and light, but he still found Derek, wearing his trademark leather jacket, leaning his long hard body against a lamppost. If Stiles didn’t know any better he would have thought that Derek came into this world wearing it. He hopped out and felt his breath catch. Derek was smiling, almost. It was a wry sort of half-amused smile that Stiles was sure meant trouble and made him wonder what Derek sounded like when he actually laughed… what he looked like when he was happy. If his teeth were straight and pearly white, if he had dimples…

“Alright,” Stiles said looking around in the crowded street. It was just past sundown. “What are we doing here?”

“Stiles,” he greeted, the smile spreading a little more, only partially showing teeth. “It’s called… an admission of wrong.”

Stiles blinked, “You mean an apology?”

Derek’s lips quirked, “Yes, Stiles. An apology. You saved my life… twice and as much as I grouse about it… there aren’t many people who would have. So thank you… and I’m sorry. I was wrong to treat you like you weren’t capable, wrong to doubt you.”

Stiles opened his mouth for a snarky reply but closed it and nodded. No need for snark now, no need to antagonize the man.  They at the very least had proven that they were a team to someone as the assignment was looking closer to permanent. The codename burned a little, but they were a team so long as the alliance didn't back out. Or rather they are a team until the alliance backs out. Stiles was an official Handler and Derek was an official agent again. They could revel in the relief for a while before their usual banter came back. That and Stiles had saved Derek twice since the beginning of their partnership...sure Derek had saved him once but Stiles still had a leg up.

“We’re a team,” Stiles said with another nod. “No apology needed.”

“Well then I guess… there’s no need to stop off for curly fries then is there?”

Stiles blinked at Derek’s wolfish grin, “Not fair.”

Derek smiled and offered his hand, “ _Aq'a gavar aqr`guva il aqr’sa  ‘ruard top il|a qual nue δoi nava δal nue δoi nava δil.”_

Stiles felt his heart tremble and he took his hand, “Aq’onra il _δo_ ar`raqi _gavar aqr’ guva il aqr’_ valce _‘ruard top il|a qual nue toi nava δal nue δoi nava δil_.”

Derek smiled at that, his wolf curling up with a low rumble at the soft stroke of the words against his soul. He shook his hand with a nod. He wasn’t completely settled in being partnered again, but something told him that he could get used to Stiles being his partner. Maybe it was because those whisky-coffee eyes had saved his life, and more than that had never shied from his probing. They were open, honest and that was rare among humans.

However, when Stiles went to the counter and the woman behind it shrieked in terror, he had to worry.

“We stopped making curly fries you monster!”

Stiles laughed, “Nice try, Sam. I’ll have my usual.”

She shook her head and walked to the back, “Monster Curly Fries Fit for Fifty!”

Derek tilted his head, “What?”

“They’re like nachos but instead of chips there are curly fries beneath the cheese and meat and… it’s just delicious. A perfect way to christen our newly budding partnership.”

Derek snorted and told him that he’d pay if only to apologize. The monstrosity was brought to their table and Derek wondered how he was so skinny as Stiles began to eat.

“I’m a growing teenager and lacrosse burns more calories than you would think.”

Derek snorted at that. He somehow thought for sure that it was the rambling that Stiles partook in frequently that was the cause of the caloric expenditure. After they’ve eaten, joked and bantered about “new leaf” and the Black Angels hopefully being disbanded as Dean had gotten himself badly injured, they headed out onto the street, strolling along in some unknown direction.

“Can I ask you something?” Stiles asked.

“You could ask me something else, but I don’t guarantee that I’ll answer it.”

Stiles shoved him with his shoulder as much as he could manage. Derek didn’t move an inch, but Stiles still felt satisfied.

“Your eyes… they glow blue sometimes…”

Derek nodded and let out a breath, “You don’t have to tell me. I was just curious. I mean… I just… never mind. Don’t bother answ--”

“Do you want the answer or not?” Derek cut in smoothly, an eyebrow raised just enough to make Stiles shut up.

“Yes.”

“When a beta willfully becomes an omega… under the right circumstances...with the right amount of will, they become a blue-eyed omega.”

Stiles nodded, shifting through the billion questions about the very obvious evasions to ask, “Does that make you special?”

“I haven’t exactly asked the Lycan Elders about it,” he said. “My family knows about it. The texts we can read just say that they’re extremely rare and are created through sheer force of will to not follow. ”

Or to be with anyone essentially. He remembered the feeling of shutting all the doors and isolating himself... he remembered fighting back and breaking bonds. He'd broken so many: to Kate, to Alphas, to the Alliance, to anyone who thought they could leash him...somehow the only one he hadn't shredded completely was to his family. His last bond, wrapped around him like a warmed blanket in the midst of a hypothermic episode. In the end, it had probably saved his life, but all too often he felt himself slipping back into that mindset and even the feral one. He’d been alone too long it had seemed. The Lycan Elders had known what they were saying then, though they didn’t seem very interested in him fixing the problem.

After all, there were plenty of Hale Betas, though he and Cora were he only surviving children of Talia Hale, the Alpha of the Hale Pack and arguably one of the strongest alphas on the continent… he wasn’t her daughter, nor her first born, nor her first son. He was the youngest male in fact. Older than Cora by all of a year and growing up it seemed that Cora was the older. She’d learned to shift before him, learned to anchor herself before him…

“Must make you a real pain in the ass for Alphas.”

A wolfish grin graced his face, “More than you can imagine. An omega like that is generally considered an aberration and a danger to the community. An anomaly potentially more dangerous than a rogue alpha.”

Stiles had the feeling that he was undermining the severity of a blue eyed omega…. From what he knew of Lycan that prized the pack, someone willfully separating themselves from one would be an anathema and wouldn’t be treated lightly. They’d be considered an apostate, public enemy number one and only...It would explain why Derek had to hide it, but not why he was telling Stiles this now.

Stiles looked at him, “Am I going to get that story?”

Derek shrugged. A swaggering peacock of an alpha had thought to get Derek into his pack after he’d gotten free of his partnership with Kate. The man was older, needing really to dominate Derek, the last of Talia's children to prove his pack's supremacy now that the Hale Pack had been crippled...he’d also had a vendetta against the Hales and had a bit of a thing for Derek.

Derek hadn't known it would happen, but when the man growled angry lycan at him, he'd only blinked at him. It had done nothing to abate his anger towards Derek’s whole family…

“And...what happened?”

“He didn't  take being defied well...or ignored."

"Did you fight?"

Derek nodded, he'd almost gotten himself killed too, but the Hale Alpha, his great uncle Liam stepped in and nearly ripped the other to shreds when he'd arrived at the event...and then promptly began to scold Derek. He wasn't using his Alpha powers then telling him to be more careful, asking what had gotten into him, at least until he remembered that Derek's eyes were green not blue, and especially not that kind of blue.

He'd gone pale and shielded him from prying eyes before hustling him somewhere secluded until Derek calmed down and Liam had leeched as much pain from his wounds as he could manage...  or rather as much as Derek would allow. In that much pain, that riled up, that angry, he’d shifted and fought any sense of care, running away. They’d trapped him and drove him thrashing and fighting the crate they’d put him in--making his injuries worst.

The omega senses had taken over and everything was an enemy.

"Is that when they found out?"

Derek nodded...They'd held an emergency family meeting on Hale territory near the Hale cemetery and demanded answers...Liam had to go full Alpha and caregiver on him to force him to shift back and pry it out of him. There had been a bit of a struggle. Liam taking the lead and making everyone else stay back as he held Derek still, letting him sink his teeth into his shoulders, angry and hurt and so damned scared. Liam had stroked his head and whispered in soft Lycan, the words of his favorite lullaby, the one Talia sung to him as a child. He remembered shifting back slow, the need to escape and fight had ebbed, his mind had cleared slowly and he realized what he’d done, what he’d been prepared to do. Liam only had to tell him that he was loved and cared for, that he was safe for his eyes to turn gold again and the hell of his partnership with Kate Argent to come out against his shoulder with shuddering breaths and pathetic sobs. He’d stayed with Liam for a month before Derek finally had to get out.

Derek didn't tell him any of this and Stiles had the sense that he wasn't going to either as the other’s eyes flickered hazel and emerald. So they rounded the corner to head back to where Stiles was parked and stopped.

"I'm glad we're alright..."

Derek let out a breath, "Since we're going to be partners..."

Stiles looked at him, they hadn't gotten the final call on their partnership and he was already making the call?

"It's not official yet."

"It will be. Deaton was the Hale Pack emissary. He's the one who paired us."

"Okay..."

"You're going to have to be trained to fight... the shifter way."

Stiles smiled, "Is this the part that you take me under your wing? Will we get a montage of training?"

Derek snorted, "Really?"

“I’m willing to work if you’re willing to trust,” Stiles said with a smile. “We’re partners.”

He was working to abjure all those basic instinct to avoid a partnership and this was how he planned to do it. He was laying himself on the line, in Stiles’s hands to a degree, and prayed that it would end badly.

***

It’s Sunday when they get the email. Derek on his insanely smart phone after a rough game of pick-up with James at the local park and Stiles as a notification on his refrigerator.

_Congratulations,_

_Agent “Stiles” Stilinski and Agent Derek Hale, you have passed the probationary period and are officially a team. Your codename is Nogitsune._

_Welcome to the force,_

_Ambassador Alan Deaton._

Stiles lets out a shout of happiness and decides that it’s best to ride to the embassy the next day in a cacophony of loud singing and really old music blaring from his jeep’s windows.

_Come on baby, tell me what’s the word?_

Derek was sitting at his desk when he heard Stiles pulling up. He wasn’t sure how he knew for sure that it was Stiles, but who else would be blaring old music this morning? He shook his head and sipped his milk tea as he came rushing into the room. Scott met him half way catching him and having a minor celebration as they headed towards their desks. Kira was burnishing her katana with a small smile on her lips.

“You’re official?”

“The most official of official!” Stiles cheered and looked to Derek.

“Can’t you look just a little happy?” He cadged with a voice that made his wolf twist to jump and make a smile appear on his face. How he abstained from letting it happen, Derek wasn’t sure but stood.

“I told you.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, “Well color me skeptical considering how many people we’ve pissed off.”

“And you… have nothing to celebrate really…”

Stiles frowned and all in a flash he was moving, barely stumbling out of the way of Derek’s fist, under it and tumbling to the ground.

“What the hell?”

Derek nodded, “Not bad...Unfortunately, I was only moving half as fast as I could.”

Scott backed away slowly as Derek looked down at him.

“I told you that since we’re going to be partners, you’re going to have to level up.”

Stiles gaped at him and he turned to Scott and Kira, “You two are welcome to join as well if you’d like.”

Scott’s face lit up and part of Stiles wondered if he was the best friend or if Derek had taken that position, but he didn’t get long to ponder that thought as Derek hustled them towards the gym, to change into something they could work out in and led them outside to run.

Stiles wanted to contemn him, but he knew that Derek was the senior in both age and experience as he’d been in the force since he was 15… As a shifter, and before the law change, the bridge program was a lot more intense. It only changed after so many young officers died in the service. When they were sufficiently warmed up, they’d ended up in a clearing, Stiles out of breath and Scott looking more excited at the prospect of Derek training them than ever.

“Why out here?”

“Because I’m going to teach you things that they don’t teach you in the academy...and would probably frown upon me teaching you.”

Kira tilted her head as Derek rolled his shoulders, “But they’re things that will keep you alive.”

“First,....”

Stiles was sure that whatever Derek was going to impart on them had been knowledge obtained the hard way. He watched Derek with Kira, working with her katana, teaching her to stay on her toes, light because shifters are notoriously fast.

“The moment’s hesitation you have to think about your next move, the average shifter, the average criminal isn’t going to have. They run on instincts so you have to move just as fast to keep up and faster if you want to have a chance.”

It was obvious after Derek faced the three of them all at the same time and danced circles around them that there was something missing.

“Kira, you’re too rigid. Don’t get a firm footing until the moment you strike. Scott, you fight like a human with no real training, you’ll need to fight like a lycan even when you aren’t shifted… and Stiles…”

Stiles wanted to grumble at the fact that he sounded so censorious.

“What?” Stiles asked.

“You’re weak.”

Stiles’s jaw dropped, “Are you kidding me?”

Derek shook his head, eyeing him, “No, and you fight like crap.”

Scott’s jaw dropped and Kira did her best to smother a giggle.

“Well not everyone can be tall, dark and petrously muscular!” He huffed somewhere between petulant, piqued, and sassy, “Some of us have to use what we have.”

Derek shook his head, “Being strong has nothing to do with your fighting technique, Scott case in point.”

He set Scott up to run through the forest until he called for him with the instruction to let his wolf take over.

“If you run into wolves, run with them.”

Scott nodded half-afraid before taking off. Kira was set to practice on the tips of her toes, going through her stances, not lowering her foot for longer than it took to strike before unbalancing herself and continuously moving. Derek approached Stiles and told him to follow him through a series of stances, registering that after a moment that Derek’s phone was playing a tribal beat, slowed down.

“Are you teaching me to dance?” Stiles asked incredulously.

“It’s called capoeira,” he said, attempting to ameliorate the situation. “And it’s somewhere in between a dance and martial arts… Along time ago, people practiced it and developed it after watching shifters fight. Since you’re so small, it’s probably the best option for you. When you get stronger, it will serve to help you direct your strength without being grounded.”

He frowned but followed Derek through the movements, listening to Derek.

“Shifters function on instinct making gut reactions so its cardinal to always confuse the first reaction to give you an advantage. Capoeira is a martial arts with layers of movements, all exact to disguise and be deadly if given the chance.”

He started Stiles off with the basic movements to get an idea of how he should feel while moving. Light, but ready to be solid and swing into a blow and carry through at any minute. When Derek asked Kira to join them with her sword, Stiles couldn’t help but feel that he was more than just behind--but failing.

Kira had a natural grace from being a swordsman that the movements came naturally, Stiles didn’t feel anything by tired by the end of the short session before Derek called out to the sky.

“Scott!”

Scott came around the other side of the clearing, huffing.

“How do you feel?”

Scott shook his head, “Just tired.”

Derek snorted, “You’ll feel it. Come on, time for some weight training.”

Stiles, never one to be capricious, was beginning to truly rethink his partnership with Derek. His whole body ached to whole new levels. He’d had an antipathy to sport-like activities before lacrosse because it seemed painful. And he was right, lacrosse was hard, but this was a _nightmare_. He was hurting in places he didn’t even know he had!

The next day there was more of the same before they were off for patrols and he and Kira had a chance to bond over the fact that they would be chugging protein shakes on their rides and achy for days. Scott and Derek had the luxury of being able to heal quickly and therefore recover faster, even if, Stiles could swear, that meant they’d eaten an illegal amount of steak.

“Making you two workout is a perfidy to every grocery store in Beacon Hills.”

Derek shrugged and as the days of their training under Derek went on Stiles began to kindle a deep abhorrence for Derek. The man was abrasive during training and a complete slave driver, but never ambiguous in his meaning…It went for capoeira movements to an amalgamation of shifter movement imitation and other martial arts that centered on the ability to be fast, aerial and always ahead of your opponent. The same was true for their nights chasing down supernatural foes. It didn’t help that Stiles’s body was not used to this type of labyrinthine exercise and was therefore doing everything it could to let him know that it was anything but complaisant in this abuse.

He was sure he’d pulled every muscle in his body and it wasn’t long until he was forced to go shopping. Whatever fat he’d had on his body was being scorched, obliterated by the fancy martial arts Derek was putting him through and the ruthless workout regimen they were all on.

Scott had come back from each run less tired and more enlivened. His eyes had begun to glow even as Derek made the runs shorter and made Scott join them still a little wolfy around the edges in their capoeira practice. As much as Stiles hated it, Derek’s tutelage had begun to change them all. Scott looked a little more comfortable in his skin, Kira’s sword technique had gotten better and Stiles… well Stiles had gotten skinnier.

“It’s going to be--”

Scott cut out over the radio when the dispatch radio came alive, screaming at them.

“ _Kite Riders and Nogitsune suspect heading East on Boardwalk--emergency apprehension. Shifter and dangerous._ ”

Derek told Stiles to drive before speaking into his radio.

“Kite Riders, there’s more than one, split up.”

Derek saw the first one and opened the door of the jeep to leap onto the man. Stiles continued on to where the other was only to cut him off and get out only to be face with a panther in half-shift looking more than pissed off.

She leapt for him and something in him reacted, because he fell back, catching himself twisting to hit the ground to sweep the woman’s legs from under her before she’d managed to steady herself. She was up again swiping at him and he followed the movement, remembering the days in the woods following the momentum and swing of Derek and Scott’s fists into a high crescent kick to the woman’s neck and spinning with it until he spun himself to the ground. By then, Derek was there, cuffing the growling woman and looking at Stiles who looked partially stunned and partially proud.

“Whoa…”

“Yeah,” Derek said with a nod. “Good job.”

Stiles grinned, his stomach and heart fluttering at the praise.

“Going to have to work on that balance though.”

His methods were a tad heterodox, but he wouldn’t say that they weren’t effective.

The next phase Stiles’s training was handling his gun against a shifter in all situations. Derek was kind enough to be his target, even though they were just rubber bullets. Scott and Kira were working hard at Kira’s sword work and Scott’s movements. He was still fighting like a human, but at least he tripped a lot less.

Derek dodged every shot as if he knew exactly where he was going to shoot.

“I do,” he said before Stiles could say it. “You need to know where I’m going to move.”

Stiles huffed at that and Derek set him up with a virtual practice throwing in scenarios and told him that he would be back. He guided Kira to the other virtual hall and went to work with Scott.

Scott swallowed as Derek came to stand before him. This wasn’t going to end well, he knew that.

“Derek?”

“Just going to push on a few of your instincts,” Derek said. “Nothing to worry about.”

Scott didn’t like where he was going with it.

“I’m going to make you fight me, Scott.” he said. “So there’s no excuse for you to hold back.”

“I’m not holding back.”

Derek snorted and rolled his shoulders, “Right…”

Scott swallowed, stepping back as Derek’s eyes began to glow and his face began to transform. It took a moment for him to breathe through the rising panic. Is that what he looked like when he shifted? He cringed stepping back.

“Are you ready?”

Scott felt himself shake and said nothing as Derek charged on him, Scott turned and ran.

Stiles and Kira turned as the gym door swung open to the outside. Scott was gone, Derek hot on his heels and in seconds Kira and Stiles were following as fast as possible. When Scott and Derek broke the treeline, they stopped and shook their heads. It was getting dark and there was no way they were going to catch them.

Kira turned to Stiles, “What the hell is he doing?”

Stiles sighed and put an arm around her shoulder, “I think we should talk… because I’m not sure exactly what Scott hasn’t told you…”

***

“You won’t outrun me like that,” Derek yelled ahead, but he knew Scott couldn’t hear him.

All confused instincts, all terror and fear and memories… that night coming back in sharp relief. His father all yellow eyes and fangs, growling, yelling at him, snarling at him drunk on something that didn’t smell like beer. Then the advance… Melissa’s screaming. The number of others with contorted faces rushing in...someone standing in front. There had been pain and Melissa crying over him, yelling. Angry distorted faces and the smell of ashes and he tumbled forward over a branch, falling to his knees, skidding until his palms were blistered and healing quickly.

Derek stops nearby watching Scott, hearing’s Scott asthmatic breathing, the panic setting in and walks forward, slowly as Scott begins to shake. The moon is rising, a crescent waxing into the dark, but it’s enough moonlight to have the faintest call on Scott and himself.

_I’ll kill you if you ever touch him again!_

It was Melissa’s voice, fuzzy, too far away and that angry, distorted face fades to the human horror of his father looking at him. His eyes still shifty, his face still flushed. The other faces that had ripped into Melissa’s clothing with their sharp claws are reverting as well and everything went dark.

“ _A’pella_ ,” Derek said approaching him and kneeling to pull Scott against him as the tears began to fall. “ _A’pella,_ a’sa, sa` _tsal loδo,_ Scott…”

_You are safe. You are protected. You are strong, stronger than the past, Scott._

Scott trembled a small whimper coming from his throat, trembling. Derek was a steady warmth against him, his clothes soaking up the tears, his breath easing, no longer mimicking that panicked breathing. Something settled, warm and open, in his chest and began to grow as Derek stroked his hair.

“ _Uil,_ ” Derek whispered. “ _Uil. A’garga nue. Ar`astad paδo nue qual il|a nue δal nue δil muδ a’ ar`astad ciaδal.”_

Scott wasn’t sure who Derek was talking to, but the rumbling of his voice was comforting, anodyne even, stroking against his wolf, like a gentle caress to ease his fear. The trembling eased and Scott sniffled, nodding.

“Thanks,” Scott said and Derek didn’t move leaving that to Scott, but he didn’t either, seemingly comforted by Derek’s closeness.

 _“A’Ravi,_ ” Derek said and shook his head slightly, not believing that his wolf, the more skeptical side of himself, was designating Scott pack.

Then again, he’d designated Amy, the beta Lycan of the Black Angels, as Pack as well when he’d found her shaking in the alliance locker room crying, bleeding and bruised after Dean was injured and she was put on probation. He’d stopped her from trying to end her life in the middle of the breakdown and had coaxed her back into the realm of sanity. He’d had to call in help from the Lycan Elders to find her pack, to look for someone left from what she could remember, but something told Derek that they weren’t trying too hard.

 _Sellouts._ If the Lycan Elders did their jobs properly, he wouldn’t be comforting Scott, he wouldn’t be traumatized in the first place. Derek wouldn’t have been traumatized either…

They stayed in the middle of the forest for a little longer before Scott was ready to let go and head back towards the embassy where he was sure that Kira and Stiles were worried.

“My father is a Lycan,” Scott started slowly. “He uh… left when I was little. I don’t remember much but a lot of screaming, roaring… I think he pushed me down the stairs… his relatives came in I guess and added to the fight and Mom threw a circle of mountain ash I think… ”

Derek listened as they walked back towards the embassy.

“I can’t remember being a Lycan before then… I can’t remember anything before then really… I didn’t know… Mom gave me wolfsbane in tiny doses over the years, some special version, but when I got to high school… when I turned 16… I’d lost my inhaler and got caught underneath the full moon, hanging out with Stiles...I don’t remember much, but I woke up with the taste of raw meat in my mouth.”

Derek nodded, the fact that Stiles had been involved wasn’t surprising, nor the fact that Scott didn’t remember anything, but what was that Stiles had been here and had survived Scott’s first shift. That meant Derek had to ask some questions. The first full moon was usually the worst, even with family… He could only guess what sort of hell Scott went through without any family at all.

“Stiles says that I didn’t turn into a full wolf or anything...just I guess a half shift…”

“The wolfsbane was probably still in your system.”

“I haven’t… even half shifted since then.”

Derek sucked in a breath, that wasn’t good, but if Scott reacted to lycan, then there was a good chance that his wolf hadn’t completely shut itself away or left the world. Maybe he was just sleeping…

“Against another shifter, you’ll need your wolf.”

Scott swallowed, “I’m… afraid.”

“Of blacking out?”

“Of hurting someone…”

Derek nodded, “Have you tried to find your father?”

He nodded, “I met him when I entered the bridge program. He recognized me...and then I saw the collar and something… clicked.”

“That he was a shifter?”

Scott nodded, “I thought I was human.”

“Until you lost your inhaler,” Derek said and Scott nodded.

“He never tried to teach you anything?”

Scott shook his head.

Derek stopped then, “Scott.”

He looked at him as Derek took a breath, “Would you like to learn?”

Scott swallowed but nodded.

“We’ll spend the full moon together then… What exactly have you been doing during the full moon anyway?”

He flushed and scratched his head, “Stiles… made me a magic box.”

“And he thought that was a good idea because?”

“He didn’t...I did.”

He nodded and cuffed Scott over the head, “Not a good idea. Come on then.”

Derek took up the lead and Scott followed behind, they reached the embassy to see Kira and Stiles waiting for them. Kira’s eyes were red and when they were in sight, she was running towards them to hug Scott tightly.

“ _I’m so sorry…_ ” She said, a hand in his hair. “ _Oh Scott…”_

Derek continued to walk forward until he reached Stiles.

“Where is this magic box? The one you lock Scott in on the full moon.”

Stiles snorted, “It’s a storage container that’s been modified. In the Preserve.”

Derek nodded, “Show me.”

Stiles shrugged, seeing that Kira and Scott were having a moment together and leading him towards his jeep to drive out towards the spot. Derek inspects it, reading the runes painted in blood and mountain ash on the edges of the box.

“Who’s blood?”

“A mix,” he said. “Mine, Scott’s, Melissa’s...even got a bit from Kira accidentally.”  
Derek looked back at him, “Where did you get these from?”

The words are Lycan, neatly written and ancient puissant words that mean more than just the letters. Meanings and feelings bound in a tiny symbol, trembling, shaking and bleeding what they can barely contain.

“I spend a lot of time in the library when the adderall kicks in.”

“These are spells or incantations you can get in any library…” he said. “You have access to a Druid library? An _Ambassador_ library?”

He shrugged, “When Mom was alive, she’d take me with her to the library all there time. The librarians at the embassy love me, so they let me in whenever.”

Derek shook his head, not believing he was hearing it, but when he went inside and saw the setup, he had to admit he was impressed.

“We usually come here before sundown and I move this bar,” he said pointing to the bar hinged to one side of the container, “To complete the line and he’s trapped with fresh air and a view of the forest.”

Derek nods, “I’ll remember that.”

In a flash, he’s getting a headache and a rush of facts about the runes, the mixture, the type of mountain ash used, and pictures of the library and then it’s gone.

“You alright, big guy?”

He nodded, trying to shake it free and glancing at Stiles who didn’t seem to be aware of it.

The next time they go out as a team and are asked to help catch fugitives, something off happens. Derek has his hands full with a kitsune, Scott is facing a panther and it seems that Kira is faced with a rogue mage who summons katana wielding onis. In all the confusion, no one realizes that Stiles is nowhere near.

It’s then that Derek feels it again, a rush of information about centripetal force and motion, a mile a minute calculations and there’s a tug on his wolf. It isn’t painful or alarming, just a new sensation.

Stiles springs up, his legs around the lycan’s neck and throws his body weight down to make the other collapse to the ground with him. He rolls free and the man has leapt onto him. Stiles catches his wrists and pushes feeling and hearing something roaring in him… no… _howling_ as he pushes the other and rolls them so Stiles is on top. It takes one solid punch to knock the guy out and get him cuffed and harmless before he can feel the pain in his hand and its throbbing. The howl ebbs as he drags the man towards where Derek and Scott are wrapping up their fighting. Scott still fights like a human, but a really fast human and that alone is progress.

Derek looks up to see Stiles, dragging a guy significantly larger than him over to them with heaving breaths.

“You… took that guy down?”

Stiles nodded glancing at Derek, “Not entirely sure how though.”

Derek isn’t convinced, so when they haul the suspects into the awaiting police cars, Derek takes Stiles’s hand.

“Gently please!”

Derek frowns at it. Lycan bones are denser, but not by much if Stiles was punching with his own natural force. He would have had to punch with _lycan_ force to knock the guy out after shooting him with normal bullets and that should have been impossible.

When Stiles’s hand is bandaged up, they tell him no guns, no driving, no punching, and no typing with the hand for at least three days as it’s all but shattered. So he climbs into Derek’s Camaro when he offers him a ride.

“What have you done to me?” Stiles asked looking at him. “It only just happened so I haven’t been able to research it but--”

“You felt it too?”

Stiles frowned, “What?”

“When we were in the woods… that headache came with a rush of information and images… regarding a library…. the Ambassador library.”

Stiles frowned, “I heard your wolf… howling... and somehow I managed to push off a huge shifter and knock him out… hence the hand.”

Derek tensed his jaw as he stopped at Stiles’s apartment building.

“You think… that when we were talking...in the square… you know that whole hand and strength deal… that our spirits may have been taking it literally?”

Derek raised an eyebrow, “Go on.”

“You said your hand and strength…. and I said my hand and mind…”

Derek blinked, he hadn’t thought of that. Lycan was a language of the spirit and spirits were able to communicate over great distances, so it was entirely possible, but how? He’d made the vow, not his wolf...and he was pretty sure that humans couldn’t…

“Claudia Stilinski wasn’t human…”

He shook his head, “My dad’s human though. My mom was a spark.”

“And you…?”

“I’m human,” he said. “Never got officially tested or anything, but I’m pretty sure I’m human. Spark powers generally follow the gender.”

Derek wondered if maybe Stiles should check into that before shaking his head, “Let’s… just keep this between us for now. Shall we?”

“Ditto,” he said. “Don’t want to even think about what the alliance will want to try and study us for.”

Derek shuddered as Stiles climbed out, “See you tomorrow, partner.”

Derek nodded and headed towards the remains of the Hale House. They hadn’t started demolition yet, still taking stock of what was useable and restorable. There wasn’t much, but the team he’d hired were all Lycan, affiliates of the Hale Pack when it was at its peak and wanted to make sure.

He took a shower and rolled on to bed. He dreamt of whiskey-coffee eyes staring into the abyss of pleasure, heart rate out of control, flushed skin and pink lips gasping his name, _Derek._ He woke up not too long after that with a hard-on he could cut diamond with and a headache. The last thing he needed was to be attracted to his handler.

Stiles woke up and went for the run to avoid the exact same problem… except he hadn’t been able to wake up before coming violently at the thought of Derek’s hands on him, skin to skin, and the slick slide of Derek’s cock inside him. So sue him that he got off again on the thought and his finger merely mimicking what he was sure would be a hell of a lot bigger and better. He was a teenaged (virgin) boy after all…

It should have been more shocking, but he didn’t realize that his hand wasn’t throbbing any more until after the post-coital haze had subsided.

When he looked at it in the morning, it was fully healed and Stiles was sure that wasn’t normal.


	10. Cardiac Arrest, When He Kisses Your Neck.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Full Moon Fun, torture and SURPRISE!

The day before a full moon is an odd one for every shifter, but especially Lycan. They get edgy, antsy and can’t seem to sit still if they haven’t learned to fully control their shift yet. Scott is always antsy and extremely careful not to get too excited over anything. This month is different as the day of the full moon Kira gives him a kiss and heads off with Stiles for some handler thing around three o’clock and leaves he and Derek at the four desks still fidgeting.

Derek looks almost amused.

“Calm down Scott,” he said.

“I can’t.”

He shakes his head, “Breathe and relax. We’ll leave around five o’clock alright?”

Scott nods furiously and is watching the clock the entire time. If he had a choice, he would have absconded about an hour prior and found some way to lock himself in that magic box in the woods. Derek spares him a glance every once and a while and he can smell how nervous and fretful he is. Except for the first, he’s never gone a full moon outside of the box….it’s probably why he’s so worked up. Wolves were naturally opposed to the modernity of enclosed structures. There was generally nothing to kill in a closed box after all. So Derek decides that they should leave a little earlier and park a little farther than the rendezvous spot to abscise some of the unease Scott feels being around so many people that close to the full moon.

It’s outside of Hale lands, but still within the preserve. Out of the office, Scott seems to relax a little bit, but not by much especially when there’s another car pulling up.

“Who…”

“It’s Amy,” Derek said easily. “The two of you have been out of touch with your wolves for so long, I thought it would be best for this to be a team exercise…”

She came through the brush with a shy smile and wave. She smelled much calmer, much safer, and generally looked a lot better since Dean had been forced into the hospital. Derek gave her a hug, brushing his jaw against her neck, scenting her before turning to Scott.

“It’ll be your first full shift and your first run…” he said with a grin. “Look a little more excited… it’s like coming of age.”

Scott nodded slowly. He wasn’t sure about this at all, but the steady gaze of Derek made someone of the knots in his stomach relax. If the man thought everything would be alright, surely... it wouldn't be a disaster...

***

At the Whittemore residence, Jackson is experiencing the same thing and content to not move from his bedroom if it means he won’t shift at all. Alan and Elena can only laugh and tell him that it’s not that simple before taking him in the car towards the preserve and walking into the woods.

Alan lifts his face to the air and frowns.

“What is it dear? Do you recognize them?”

“Vaguely,” Alan said. “Best to let them know we’re here if they’re friendly.”

They walk towards the scent and step into the clearing to see Derek coaxing Scott through breathing and Amy standing nearby with a nervous smile.

“Everything alright?”

Derek turned to see the three and recognized Jackson with a grin.

“It’s good to see you aren’t dead.”

Jackson blinked, trying to decipher the face when it hits him: Derek Hale, and he’s grinning, walking towards him with awe.

“What the hell happened to your face? That’s not fair.”

Derek laughed and rubbed the stubble, “It’s called facial hair.”

Scott and Amy look between the two as they drew nearer and embraced tightly.

"It's good to have you back, Jack." Derek said with a pat to his back. "Ready for your first full moon?"

Jackson winced, the last time it didn't turn out so well.

"You'll be fine," Alan assured. "Your mother and I will keep an eye out for you."

“I’ll be watching over you, Amy, Scott.”

It warmed him significantly, but the accretion of fear that had been festering since the beginning of the week, and maybe since the beginning of that full moon night he'd almost killed Stiles was still there and heavy, acerbic in the back of his throat.

Derek's acumen when it came to Scott’s reactions to his Lycan side had astounded him as he produced a picture of Kira, Stiles, and his mother. A candid shot of them outside, they'd all been caught in the middle of laughing and it pulled on his heart to see them so happy.

"The key to taming yourself during a full moon is having an anchor so that when the moon calls, you are not so far gone that you lose sight of your humanity."

Scott took the picture with trembling fingers and swallowed thickly as Derek pulled off his jacket and began to fold it on a tree.

"We'll meet back here when we're tired, sound good?"

Scott nodded shakily.

"Jackson and Scott," Derek said. "You're first."

Jackson blinked, "Why?"

"Because you two never have before," Derek admonished. "And it would make sense for the experienced parties to be able to help you should you need it."

As the moon began to rise, Scott felt that odd sense of maladroit ease as the balance shifted and he felt himself shaking. He knew his eyes were glowing and looking to Derek for help.

"I don't..."

Jackson groaned, falling to his knees shaking his head, the unadulterated primal feeling was there and he panicked, fighting it. He'd only been back in his life for a little while. He wouldn't survive another seven years in that simple mindset, in that empty opaque wandering. It was an odious feeling and he roared, shaking his head.

"Don't fight it Jackson," Alan said kneeling, laying a hand on his son's shoulder. "It's okay. You're safe."

The words only aggrandized the roaring in his ears.

"Try it in Lycan," Derek suggested, kneeling in front of Scott as his claws began to extend and fur begin to grow.

"I... don't speak Lycan."

He looked at Alan and then to Elena who shook her head. He wished he'd known that a little sooner before the imminence of the full moon but he took a breath and withdrew his hand.

" _Uil,_ " he said. " _A ma jilu nue, alir zilo a gal nue neru lucaon alir ut olu. zilo mea aed olu-is."(1)_

Scott roared, his mind filling with the call of the moon, the howl of the wolf blotting out all else.

"’lucaon gavar _aeð, alir seu nue. A ruqase nue. A'lucaon lucaon'a."(2)_

Jackson's eyes were burning remembering the night spent awake with no recollection of who he was... a hazy recollection of ruby red lips...

Ruby red lips... Ruby red lips and strawberry blonde hair...

Lydia.

He felt himself changing, holding the picture of her face in his mind. The world drew away and closer in relief, louder, and he looked up to see his parents staring over him, sounds of adulation coming from their lips.

"Jackson,” Elena breathed, running her hands over his furry head with a soft smile. “You did wonderfully.”

He heard himself rumble pleasantly and realized after a moment that he’d shifted fully. He turned his head to see Scott still, shaking, tears streaming down his face as Derek talked to him in gentle Lycan.

“Zilo mea aed olu-is _,_ Scott. A’pella.” (3)

Scott can only her the screaming and the gentle strokes of Derek’s voice against his wolf. A dark space and a soft whimper filled with an alacrity to be accepted and Scott bared down, hearing the roar. Feeling the pull of the moon over him. It was like before, as moonlight filled the space and slowly the figure came into view. He forced his eyes open and thought of Kira and Stiles and what if the next time Stiles isn’t there to talk him out of it, or Derek, or anyone… He thought of them and faced the wolf sitting still before him. Small, and brown with hauntingly mercurial eyes looked at him. The wolf was beautiful and sitting there. He couldn’t look away, couldn’t black out, it was too dangerous now that he was old enough. There was no wolfsbane in his blood, nothing to excuse him from facing the truth.

“ _A’lucaon…_ ”he heard and he reached his hand out, trembling. Maybe waiting for it to howl and charge, to rip him apart. (4)

All he felt was it coming closer, snuggling up to his chest and the warmth, reverberating through him.

“ _A’aq_.”He heard and felt it spreading like a tingling just beneath the skin. When he opened his eyes, the moon was full and filling his eyes. Derek was stroking the fur on his head. (5)

“You did well, Scott…”

He yelped, looking at his paws on the ground, the odd vision into the night, into the distance and the sounds of the forest.

“Hold on, let me get you out of that first.”

He stayed still, leaning down so that Derek could pull his shirt and jacket over his head.

“Hold on,” he said and turned to Amy who smiled a little and shifted. Watching it happen was an odd experience as she grew shorter, furrier and shifted into a snow-white wolf.

The moonlight reflected off her coat as she nudged Derek’s leg.

“Looks like we’ll be all running together,” Derek said with a slight smile, pulling his shirt off and jumping.

It was much smoother than Amy’s, quicker too. There was an alchemic aesthetic to his shift that Scott couldn’t quite name.  Before his front paws hit the ground, he was full wolf with a thick black coat of fur. His eyes glowing yellow as he waited for them to rally and Scott shuddered as he heard Derek’s voice like a whisper in the back of his mind.

_Scott, Amy and Jackson in the middle. I don’t want you guys getting lost. Mrs. and Mr. Whittemore, please lead the way._

_No, Derek, you may lead._

Derek, if he was in his human form, would have blushed. He’d never been asked to lead before, but he turned and took a deep breath before charging forward into the brush. He heard them following. Mrs. and Mr. Whittemore just behind Amy, Jackson and Scott. The six of them broke through the underbrush and raced through the trees at a steady and freeing pace.

The sound of shots splintering wood adumbrated the presence of hunters, but Derek told them to get off the trail and follow him through the woods to circle back around. He occasionally darted off from the pack to  confuse their trail, scratching bark and breaking twigs in odd directions until he was sure that the hunter’s were getting lost before he rejoined the group and lead them back towards the clearing.

None of them were sure how long they ran, but it was clear that it was well past midnight when they circled back to the spot. Jackson and Scott tussled, Amy joined in and Derek could only watch from the sidelines feeling oddly content and watchful. The last few moments would make all the difference in the end. He’d somehow managed to lead Scott to his wolf and the other still maintained his senses, lead a group of hunters away from them and somehow everyone was still in one piece. Not a bad full moon for someone who’d never led the pack before and hadn’t been a part of a group run in years.

The major test of course would be whether or not Jackson and Scott could shift back. He stepped towards them to address them as Amy dragged her clothes behind the tree and shifted back as did Elena and Alan.

 _Time to shift back,_ Derek said with a breath. _Take a deep breath and let your human side surface slowly. Too fast and you’ll hurt yourself this first time. You’ll get faster at it with more practice._

Scott was oddly the first one to make it to his full human self, shaking his head clear of the rush and trying to drag his clothes on. Jackson had a bit of a hard time. After all, his human side had only surfaced for Lydia when he was a Kanima.

_Remember what makes you human and let it pull you out…_

He thought of ruby red lips and jasmine shampoo… of late night phone calls and that glittering promise ring and felt himself gasp and stumble back on his very human ass in the middle of the clearing as if he’d just come up from swimming.

Derek walked backwards into his jeans and underwear and surfaced slowly, giving himself enough time to adjust his clothing and stand up to grab his shoes and shirt as Jackson got dressed.

“What… a rush…”Scott said, his voice brimming with alacrity. “Tell me we can do this every full moon.”

Derek only smiled at him, a small genuine smile, Scott was just like a pup, eager to learn, hopeful and discovering himself truly.

“If you’d like.”

Scott nodded eagerly as Elena and Alan stepped from behind the tree to collect Jackson.

“Thank you Derek,” Elena said.

“I was never amenable to full moon runs because of hunters… but it was more than enjoyable.”

Derek nodded in understanding, “Thanks for running with us. It was nice to run in a group.”

Jackson nodded, rubbing his eyes, “Now… I’m exhausted.”

Derek let a wolfy grin cover his face, “That will happen. It was your first shift after all and we did run for a while. Get some rest.”

“Shower first,” Jackson snorted. “Wouldn’t want to get fleas or something.”

Derek snorted at Scott’s look of horror, “That could happen?”

Derek shook his head. Though fleas were possible, it usually only happened if you stayed in wolf form for too long. Derek drove Scott home. Scott hesitated before getting out of the car and turned to Derek.

“Thank you,” he said.

Derek nodded, “You’re welcome.”

“If… it’s not too much to ask,” Scott started. “Could I ask for Lycan lessons?”

Derek snorted, “Lycan lessons?”

Scott flushed and swallowed, “I don’t have anyone else… to teach me… really. I’ve been kind of winging it as I go along… Stiles has been a great help, but he couldn’t teach me how to shift… and… if it’s going to make me a better agent… I want to know.”

Derek nodded, approbating his reasoning and told him that he would teach him as much as he was willing to learn. Scott beamed at him, thanked him and rushed into the apartment complex. The energy of the full moon still pushing him up the stairs and into his apartment.

Derek heard Kira’s voice greeting him before he drove off, hoping not to hear anything else.

***

Kira and Scott arrived the next Monday at work. Scott’s eyes alight and almost an apotheosis of deviant. She went straight to Derek’s desk as Stiles looked up from his screen to greet them.

“What did you do?”

Derek raised an eyebrow, “What are you talking about?”

“Ever since he came back from that full moon bonding with you Scott has been… _handsy_ to say the least.”

Stiles snorted as Derek ruthlessly stamped down the need to laugh, “It’s… just his senses coming to light. His instincts and all that.”

She blinked as Derek took another breath and pressed his lips together to keep from smiling. She was completely covered in Scott’s scent, every inch of her was covered all the way down to her shoes.

“Well how long is it going to last? I’ve never had to fight my boyfriend off from wanting to drill me over the nearest surface before and if I don’t want to be late every day, I’d like to not have to continue to do so.”

Stiles broke as Derek closed his eyes, lifted his eyebrows and tilted his head down in amusement. It wasn’t something that he could give an apposite answer to. The reasons for Scott’s change in behavior were arabesque at best byzantine at worst. It could have been that Scott had never really felt the wolf’s sex drive before, or any sex drive at all and was now just overloaded… could have been that the wolf recognized Kira as a mate and wanted to mark her mentally, physically, and spiritually. Scott being completely new to this, wouldn’t know how to articulate that.

“I’ll talk to him,” Derek said gently. “In the mean time I would suggest you commandeer some of his clothing for a while.”

Her eyebrow kicked up as Derek stood and began to drag Scott away to speak to him. Kira huffed and went to Stiles.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing Kira…”

Scott came back with an apology and an attempt to calm down, stumbling through the concept of scenting and his wolf wanting to lay a claim on her. She laughed and kissed him.

"Next time," she said. "Just tell me."

Scott scratched his head with a diffident smile. Kira was never one for disparaging remarks, if anything she was always cool about everything. Never one to dissemble, she was always honest and prepared to take on anything... so long as you gave her warning.

"I don't mind your newfound love for sex," Kira said with a sly smile. "I was beginning to wonder if we'd ever have sex again actually, but let's save marathoning for days off."

Scott flushed and Stiles did his best to appear distrait even as he bit the inside of his mouth. He was totally not going to ask about that later.

About a month later, Stiles, Derek and Scott climb into Scott's car together. Why they're taking his car and not the Camaro or Stiles's jeep is not discussed. Kira was off in some form of sword training and wouldn't be joining them so technically Scott was the ride along. Yet Scott was driving, Derek was in the passenger seat and somehow Stiles ended up in the back. Just like Lycans to try and take over even though Scott had no sense of direction (Lycan or not) and Derek had no idea where to start. But the three of them were in the car together per the orders of the alliance representative at the Los Angeles Embassy. The debriefing was doggerel at best but Stiles gleaned enough from it to get a sense of direction, looking for the man behind the Kanima’s master after the man had been found dead, burned from the inside, within a holding cell. They were supposed to be meeting up with a team from L.A. about a pattern of murders and a rise in demonic activity: someone was doing sacrifices in the heart of the city. For what purpose, they didn't know, but it had spread all the way up the coast and was threatening to spill into Beacon Hills.

The lighting of the late night strip they cruised down filled the car with shifting blues that made Derek’s face look even darker than usual and illuminated Stiles's light colored clothing. Blue caught the waves of Scott's hair that had grown out considerably since the last time he'd cut it. With his wolf surfacing more, it seemed that his body was finally catching up with the Lycan program.

"Why do you two always seem to be wearing bum college kid clothing?" Derek asked.

Scott flushed, "I haven't done laundry."

Derek shook his head, "Your excuse."

"I have none," Stiles said with a shrug. "This is just who I am. I've learned its best to wear things I don't care about so I don't feel bad when they get ruined."

Stiles sits back with a huff as Scott stops for gas and climbs out. He leans forward almost immediately to look at Derek who finds his eyes wandering towards him. Unfortunately Stiles’s adderall had not kicked in yet which meant he had enough sense to have the conversation in Lycan, if only because he liked Derek’s voice when he spoke it, but not enough sense to not have the conversation at all.

_“You know Derek?”_

Derek stiffened, his wolf interested and zoning in on Stiles’s voice.

“ _Yes?_ ”

“ _You never answered me--_ ”

Derek got a rush of the memory, the question that had confused him enough to let his guard down and allow Stiles to extract the bullet painfully.

_Do you find me attractive?_

Derek blinks, but his wolf is answering for him… in English and Derek has to figure out what the hell is happening. Because usually when they’re having a spirit to spirit talk, it’s in Lycan. He didn't even know his wolf _knew_ English, he'd always seemed to have a healthy disdain for the language.

 _I am really physically attracted to you and it feels… incredibly awkward saying that_.

Derek isn’t sure why he’s said that, or even where it had come from, but he knows for certain that his wolf is curled up with a pleased rumble and perhaps this spirit link they have going is getting a little out of hand. Growing up with mortal lie detectors meant that he'd never learned to lie. His spirit had no reason to lie...

_Yeah, sexual desire, lust, passion, arrr-ousal…incredibly awkward I’m sure._

Derek looked at him pointedly and Stiles leaned back against Scott’s chair who had just climbed into the car, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place as he’d practically zoned out then they begun to stare at each other pointedly and half way babble through an intelligible conversation about their assignment for the night.

“Are we done now? Because honestly, I’d like not to think about why you decided to ask me that of all things.”

Stiles blinked as Scott started up the car, “What you guys arguing about now?”

A few moments passed with Stiles and Derek’s eyes locked before Stiles said, “I’m trying to convince him to sit in the back.”

“If we crash into something it would make more sense for you to be back there.”

“The only reason we’d crash is because you two don’t know where we’re supposed to be going.”

Derek held up a page that looked suspiciously like Stiles’s notes and thoughts on the current situation.

“I think I can read your handwriting as sloppy as it is.”

“That’s stealing.”

“And that’s hogging information now shut up.”

Stiles doesn't even get to point out the fact that both Scott and Derek were there during the meeting. When they see the other team Derek knows that this is supposed to be a tag along and something tells him that they aren't going to have any fun with it. It turns his stomach to see Amy like that, the collar around her neck, her eyes zoned out... Dean is looking as smug as ever and he wants so badly to tear the man to shreds that it takes everything in his power not to.

His wolf growls as Amy keeps her eyes on the ground, staring beyond the concrete as Dean greets them.

"Where's your handler?" Dean asked. "It's not good for dogs to stray from their owners."

Scott's eyes flash, evincing his anger, "I'm not a _dog._ "

"You need training."

Derek places a hand on Scott's shoulder with an exacting look before glancing to Amy. Scott relaxed slowly, the need to protect Amy and kill dean was exigent, but he was practically powerless if the Lycan Elders and the Alliance had seen fit to send her back.

"Dogs can ride together," Dean said. "You're with me kid."

Stiles gets a bad feeling but at least Amy would be among lycans who would make sure she was alright. SHe climbed into the back seat of the car with Derek as Scott drove. Stiles climbed into the back seat as he was instructed. _Apparently_ , kids sat in the back.

He closed his eyes and tapped into the tether to see what Derek saw. Amy was curled up against the door trembling, shaking and silent even as Derek spoke to her in low, adonye lycan. What had this monster done to her?

They circled the city a few times and parked. Stiles felt something inside him shift as he whirled around in his seat. The glass exploded out the back seat and Dean turned the engine on to tear away from the sidewalk.

He heard Scott throwing the car into gear behind them, but it wasn't long before they were separated. It had been planned perfectly. Dean crashed into a light pole, screaming and Stiles could only feel the hands that dragged him out of the car. He pushed at them, struggling, reaching for the gun that was quickly knocked from his hand as a fist fell on to his face and everything went black.

Scott cried out, the mountain ash barrier was persistent causing them more pain being useful that he'd had to drive in reverse to find a way around. By the time they made it, the car had been empty for a while and the scent trail had begun to fade.

"Magic," Derek cursed as Scott dialed the embassy.

Amy took off running and Derek followed close behind, he didn't shift but told Scott to follow with back up. He made sure his scent was strong enough to pick up with each pass of his hand on the leaves, the trees, marking them with claws. He felt a tug on his senses as information flooded, thoughts and pain. Stiles was at least alive though not in the greatest of shapes.

Then, there's a stabbing pain that makes him stop and swoon, cursing at the strength of it. What the hell was that? Adrenaline flooding his veins, _fuck!_ his palms pierced through and he can’t see for a moment, a man’s face covered with a mask, to his left and the clink of steel against steel. The pain in his hand grows deeper and deeper.

 _Dear God,_ Stiles was being crucified….

***

Despite his ingenuous appearance, Stiles was more versed in politics and the hard, dark edges of the world than anyone would ever give him credit for. He’d faced a heart of darkness and death and hell and survived, so when the man with glowing eyes picked up the knife, he didn’t stiffen, he didn’t plead like the man beside him did.

“P-Please… don’t hurt me…”

Stiles almost snorted. That was Dean: able to abuse a poor lycan girl, yet in the face of death turned into a sniveling pile of dross worth only for the bottom of his boots. He saw Amy not too far, rushing and running head first into the mountain ash barrier and pulling back, falling to her knees and screaming, covering her ears as Dean ordered her to help him.

She was frozen, the man holding the knife paid her no mind as he dipped the blade in wolfsbane, yet seeing her that way pissed him off and he walked to Dean to stab him hard in the side and drag the knife up so he died, a slow excruciating death. Amy screamed in terror as Dean coughed up blood and then she was still, completely still and staring at Dean's face as he slowly slipped out of consciousness and out of life.

Stiles said nothing as the man turned towards him.

“No tears?” He asked, licking his lips and trailing the edge down his cheek, looking into Stiles’s hard dark eyes. “I was looking forward to seeing those pretty red lips begging for your life.”

“Sarcasm and word-vomit are the only things that come out of these lips,” he said. “And suggestions. Like the fact that there are mints in my pocket.”

He was anything but ingenuous and that made the sick man smile, this would be far more fun if he had to work for the screaming. Unlike the other handler he'd caught, this one would do nicely for his own cravings and the craving of the world beyond.

The first slide of the blade into Stiles flesh wrung a cry of pain and a scream, "You asshole!"

It was only a flesh wound, but the fact that it begun to heal so quickly was interesting. The wolfsbane should have entered his blood stream, but it seemed to not be affecting him.

"What are you?" he asked with a sick curiosity.

"Pissed the fuck off!"

The man laughed, the boy had spirit. He would enjoy this. He set up the basic works first on Dean's forehead, symbols drawn in the man's blood and magic before moving on to Stiles who would be the main sacrifice.

He'd kill the wolf girl soon enough.

***

When Derek managed to follow the scent, he saw Amy stopped, staring blankly into the distance and Dean's body hanging off a cross. LIght from the field lights and the moonlight echoed through the trees. The smell of blood, Stiles's blood, was thick in the air. It was fresh and then he heard the scream.

"Fuck you!"

He can see Stiles splayed out on the cross and hear the incantations of two other figures. He can smell the mountain ash and wolfsbane in the area, but he doesn’t care. His wolf is more agitated than ever. Stiles's palms are bloodied opened in the palm and pinned by stakes tipped with triskeles.

 _Lycan_ , he thought. A lycan that smelled human? Or a human trying to become lycan? There were so many potentials, but hearing Stiles’s scream halted all processing. This had to stop before the boy in all his bravado bled to death.

“Fuck you!”

Another reign of blows came across his face, the dagger cut hot symbols into his chest, he was going to puke, go dizzy and pass out from the pain.

“Scream, Agent! Scream for you life!”

Derek could feel Stiles tensing his jaw against the pain. He wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction as his pants weer stripped off and Stiles was left in just his boxers.

 _Mine_ , his wolf growled. His partner, he wanted to correct, but he wasn’t a fool. He knew what his wolf meant when it growled _mine._ The surge of protectiveness and possession didn’t just mean pack or partner. He didn’t think about it as the man in the cloak began to drag his demonic letters into Stiles’s thighs.

Derek marched forward across the field under the white flood lights in the cool crisp air of February. A back lit silhouetted figure creating ghosts as he walks and breathed himself into being. Even in pain, Stiles can’t help but think it would make a great opening to a superhero movie. But this isn’t a movie, this psycho means business and whatever ritual he was trying out was _big_ , big enough that Derek would need some serious back up.

He manages to choke out through the pain and blood bubbling up through his mouth, “ _Oδr’a…_ ”

_Run._

His wolf growls louder and prowls to the edge of the barrier, the man laughs and continues to chant and carve symbols into Stiles’s thighs, paying Derek no heed as Derek pressed his hands to the edge. It burns and pushes him back, his claws back into his finger, his fangs back into his gums, but he doesn’t stop. He presses until there are blisters and he can feel the beginnings of his skin ripping.

Stiles grunted and roared against the pain, panting, sweating and looking paler as his wounds were worsened by further abuse and blood slid down his body.Each cut of the knife into his skin felt like fire and the incantations shook him to the core of himself, attempting to rattle his soul from within his chest and out into the open. There’s a darkness that covers his eyes that he can barely see through as he hears half-choked grunt and screams. But he can say it, he sees Derek, feels his wolf angry and ready to rip the man to shreds.

_Mine._

“ _Oδr’a!_ ” He screams on the edge of agony as another rune is carved on his ankle and the man begins to nail his feet to the ground. The stakes are metal, but no less ornate than the ones in his palms. Stiles hears himself let out a choked sound into the night as the first rips through his flesh and bone and straight into the ground. The sounds are intelligble and he feels the bile coming up and out onto his tormentor.

Derek takes his first step through the barrier at the sound, digging his heels in and pushing. He can feel the blisters beginning, but it’s worth it. It will be worth it when he sinks his fangs into the man’s neck and lets his wolf tear the other apart.

“ _Oδr’a…_ ”Stiles gasped weakly. “ _Efilδe.”_

 _“Aq'a gavar aqr`guva il aqr’sa,"_ Derek growled, his eyes blowing bright amber in the dark. _“ _‘ruard top il|a qual nue δoi nava δal nue δoi nava δil. A’Ravi_ _nue δoi nava xkin δil."__

 

He can feel his heart stutter but is unsure of it’s because Derek has acknowledged him as pack or the dig of the knife it what he is sure is somewhere near his kidney. When the man drives the other stake into his foot, Stiles cries out, tears burning his eyes and it’s a long desperate scream as he slams the hammer down once more and seals the bond between the stake and the ground with Stiles’s blood.

Then there’s a shock wave and the bastard that’s carving him up is ripped away from him and is screaming instead. Derek is making guttural sounds as others attack him, freeing the leader to run, but ending up unconscious. Stiles can barely make out what’s happening, but knows by the sounds alone that Derek has killed at least one man with his bare claws and one man, the ring leader with the kabuki mask, has escaped.

Derek looks back, the moonlight casting silver light across the planes of his face. His mouth his open showing the beginnings of gangs or at least teeth ready to extend and rip someone’s throat out. A part of Stiles knows that it wouldn’t be his own, but none of that matters… it’s his eyes. The usual glow of yellow, even the occasional blue glow is gone and is now a steady red.

 _Alpha_ red.

_Holy Shit…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1- Peace, You must not fight it, but remember that you are not only wolf but man. Remember those who make you a man.  
> 2- Give the wolf boundaries, but do not trap him. You will not win. You are the wolf. The wolf is you.  
> 3- Remember those who make you a man.  
> 4- You are wolf.   
> 5- You are me.  
> * Not translating the oath parts, because I think it's relatively salient...and sort of explained... not to mention spiritually complicated for both Stiles and Derek.


	11. No First Degree, Scientist, or Biology,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panic. Amy. Therapy.

“I’m your partner,” Derek says, half-growled and half-spat. Other words are pushing at his lips, but he doesn’t indulge them. "Partners don't leave you to die."

Stiles can’t breathe as Derek crosses the clearing, angry and agitated by the fact that the leader had escaped him, but not without injury. His wolf wanted to chase, to run, tackle, and rip and shred to lacerate the man’s mind and soul before he died a slow painful death. The rage was only mitigated by the need to care for Stiles.

“Stay with me,” Derek said. “This is going to hurt.”

Stiles knows that and cries out as Derek pulls the stakes out with quick pulls and moves to wrap him up. The wounds still cover his body, laced with wolfsbane but he isn’t dead yet, the stakes were too so he would be bloody and battered for a while yet. Derek does his best to get him down without further agitating his injuries and keep his wolf from whining with concern at the less than sardonic tone Stiles is speaking with. It’s breathless and barely slurred as Derek, lifts him from the cross and cradles him in his arms. Stiles trembled.

“How did you find me?” Stiles asked as Derek kneeled with him in his arms and shrugged out of his jacket to wrap around Stiles.

Their fingers interlaced as Derek focused on leeching the pain from him and keeping him balanced as he finagled bandages from his ripped t-shirt. The wounds won’t heal quickly even with Derek’s help, but the pain he can help with to keep Stiles steady. The embassy would want pictures of what had been done to Stiles. In the distance, he heard police cars and jeeps, Scott and Kira leading them through the forest and calling their names.

“You are my partner, I can track you practically anywhere… and Amy practically led the way, while tracking Dean.”

Stiles smiles a little, the world fading in and out, “We… make pretty good partners…Why… would you do that? You… could have been killed.”

He may still be, Stiles thought, depending on how the Lycan Elders and the Alliance would feel about the new development. Stiles had heard stories, but they were all presented as mere myths to keep betas struggling to towards power.

Derek, while happy to have Stiles where he could see and care for him --even if his bandaging skills were a little more than shabby-- felt odd. There was a humming beneath his skin a different sort of roaring energy that would not be stopped. Something in him had changed.

“We’re friends, Stiles,” he said. “Isn’t… that what friends do?’

Stiles snorted, “You’ve… been around Scott for too long…”

"And… if you let me be more than a friend,” he said. “I think we could be really good together…”

“Turning alpha… just to save me...”

Derek only smiled at the weak muttering, the other hadn’t heard a --

His blood ran cold.

 _Alpha?_ Him? But how?

“What are you talking about Stiles?”

“Alphas… can pass mountain ash barriers… and your eyes… they’re red… like ruby glowing red...blood red… alpha red...fire truck...fire hydrant...”

 _That_ isn’t good. He wasn’t sure if it was as bad as being a blue eyed omega, but it was definitely bad. Bad, bad bad… he’d have to keep this under wraps for as long as possible. Neither one of the men he’d killed had been alphas, even if they were, that was after he’d broken through the barrier.

***

Where John Stilinski arrives with the cavalry, he’s not sure what to expect. For one, the lycan girl that was little more than catatonic, glowing eyes staring up at the moon was not one. Seeing the body of Dean hanging from a cross, two bodies, and Derek Hale cradling his son in his arms was also not on his list.

“Stiles!” John heard himself yell rushing forward and feeling his stomach turn.

Stiles was always pale, but the gaping holes in his feet and the strange oddly neat carved script up his legs made him wonder if it was blood loss of what.

“Stiles!”

Derek looked up, black veins up his neck and his eyes steady, shifting with a turmoil, maybe to keep from shifting, maybe from leeching the pain.

“He’s alive,” he said. “We’re going to need an ambulance.”

John nodded and kneeled  so that he could see Stiles who looked at him with bleary dark eyes, his face was carved as well, painted and through the folds of Derek’s jacket he could see that his entire body was covered in bloody runes--carved into his skin.

“Dear Gods,” John said. “What happened?”

Stiles’s lips twitched, “Just… another day at the office.”

John chokes on a laugh as Stiles wiggles a bit, “I’m...sleep now.”

“Go ahead,” John whispered. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

Stiles nodded, turning his face towards Derek and curling into his warmth with a slight shiver. When he’s asleep, Derek lifts him from the ground and carries him towards the awaiting ambulance.

Scott regards him strangely as Derek walks towards the girl who has bitten an EMT and growled at several other agents.

“Son of a bitch,” he complained. “I’m trying to help!”

She growled low, her eyes vacant and instinctual and it’s Derek that takes over and kneels. Scott behind him and he extends a hand.

“Usi, garga’a,” he said softly. “ _Usi._ ”

She whimpers a little and manages to crawl towards him until she’s right up against him, in the circle of his arms. He strokes her hair, just like before and breathes, letting her sink into the warmth of his presence and his scent.

“ _A’pella_ ,” he said. “It’s all over now.”

Derek manages to get her into a police car with him, Scott, and Kira and drive to the hospital. He checks Amy in to the lycan ward for care and to rest before heading to find Stiles’s room. They’ve taken all the pictures of Stiles they needed for the case and were still canvassing the scene. Scott told him to stay with Stiles.

“You’re the only one I know that can get him to stop asking questions,” he said with a grin. “We’ll call when we get there.”

Derek nodded and told them to catch a ride with the forensics crew. John comes in and out to check in with him, but Stiles doesn’t wake up until the next day, his face swollen and bandaged. He looks like a mummy with the amount of bandages on him. When Stiles wakes up, his eyes roll across the blinding lights on the ceiling and wonder who thought it was a good idea. There’s the smell of antiseptic and the beep of an EKG. There’s also snoring.

 _Dad,_ he thought immediately and turned his head to see the Sheriff slumped in a chair by his bed, holding his hand in a death grip. He’s going to hate himself in the morning, Stiles knows that for sure, but it’s touching to see him there. The door opens and it’s Derek with cups paper hot cups and a bag of something that smells like deliciousness.

“How are you feeling?” Derek asks, setting the bag down and taking the chair on the other side.

Words scramble around in his head--pain, worry… _alpha._

“How?” Stiles heard himself say and Derek raised an eyebrow not quite understanding how that was an answer to his question.

“Stiles? Did you hit your head?”

“How did you do that?” Stiles said, words tumbling. “Why did you do that? You know more than anyone you could have been killed, and maybe you still will be--the alliance--”

“You’re welcome,” Derek said and set the bag in his lap, opening it to shove a half of a handful of curly fries into Stiles’s mouth.

The taste makes him moan, they’re _perfect_ and after nearly dying they were divine.

“ _Selm erou,_ ” Stiles says as he moans and swallows a hot blush across his cheeks, “For coming after me.”

“ _You’re my partner._ ”

Stiles feels that there’s more to the way that Derek says “partner” than just their alliance partnership, but being that apparently Stiles was pack, he figured it had something to do with that.

“But that isn’t exactly the most pressing thing right now, is it?” Stiles says softly, whispering into the dimness of the hospital room.

Derek only stands to wake the sheriff so that he can see Stiles awake and talk to him before telling Stiles to eat and leaving for the night.

“I’m heading back to the embassy to write up my report.”

“Derek…” Stiles started.

_You can’t tell the truth…_

Derek shook his head, “I have no choice. Other lycans will be able to tell.”

 _Tell what?_ He wondered. That he was an alpha in general or would they know how he became and alpha as well? Besides all that, alphas were in general not allowed to work as agents because they were notoriously hard to control or work with by handlers. If they did work as agents, they were assigned to more experienced handlers or quickly moved through the ranks to become a consultant for other embassy stations. Those that weren’t, most alphas, were put on the frontier fighting to expand the alliance’s control of the supernatural… the frontier where the mortality rate was higher than death by rabies, malaria, and starvation combined.

Stiles knew that Derek was aware and had put himself at great risk by coming after Stiles, but no one really knew how the alpha spark was acquired or passed. No one really knew anything about lycan evolution and hierarchy shifts. The knowledge was all tangled up in old books held by the old families or in the Lycan Elder’s hands. Stiles felt the anxiety rising. He didn’t know, there was so much that he didn’t know. So much that could come out of the dark and murder them in their sleep. He need the internet, he needed Adderall because all the possibilities were rolling into his mind faster than he could ponder them. Death, torture, studying, death—

Death—

_Death--_

“ _Uil,_ ” Derek said as Stiles felt his hand on the top of his head. The orbs of green-maybe--mystery looked at him warmly. “Astad nue. _a`On is uil, uira astad._ δ`Ravi. Uil.δ`pella.”

Stiles’s jaw trembled and John looked between the two in interest. This wasn’t exactly what he’d expected and he wished more than anything that he’d let Max teach him lycan, just to figure out what was being said.

“ _a`pella nue…_ ” Stiles said softly, his eyes burning and Derek smiled.

“δ`sa… tsal sa il’to. Astad nue.”

Stiles wasn’t sure if he could take that advice but nodded slowly.

“I’ll tell Scott you’re up and grab a doctor to come check on you… Sleep, follow their instructions.”

Stiles snorted, “I don’t trust doctors.”

Derek smirked, “Then trust me.”

Stiles swallowed thickly and fisted the sheets, ignoring the way his entire body throbbed and the way his hands were practically numb.

“Son?” John asked looking at him. “Are you alright?”

He shook his head, “I don’t know, Dad.”

“What happened?”

He swallowed and looked at the man with a deep breath, “Derek broke a mountain ash barrier to save me.”

John’s eyes widened and his eyes went to the door that Derek just exited and then back to his son’s face. He squeezed his hand.

“Things will be rough,” he said. “But things will work out the way they’re supposed to.”

“They always do.”

He only hoped that the way it’s supposed to work out doesn’t lead to Derek’s death.

***

Derek snagged the first doctor he recognized, a lycan woman who’d been treating Stiles to tell him that he was awake and not to get angry that he’d given him a wealth of junk food to eat. The next stop was the embassy to check in with Scott and Kira. Scott stared at him strangely for a moment, stepping a bit farther back before beginning to ask all the questions in the world.

Once Derek had answered all of his questions, he sat down to write up his preliminary report and headed towards the Lycan Elders station of Beacon Hills. It was grand compound that granted access to lycan immediately, but all others had to go through security. He nodded at the sentry who watched him strangely, probably trying to figure out what their wolves were trying to tell them as he walked in.

The woman working the desk, an omega, looked at him and tensed. He offered her his best smile.

“I’m here for Amy McCane.”

The woman stuttered out directions to where she was and who to speak to about her case. He thanked her and headed down the long corridors, nodding at familiar faces who also seemed to stare at him strangely. He’d been right when he thought that they would know. They might not have figured it out yet, their knowledge of Derek and the concept of alpha causing a major disconnect.

He knocks on the door at the end of the hall and heard Amy’s voice telling him that it’s open. When he opens the door, she’s swaddled in blanket and there’s an IV in her arm. He can smell wolfsbane and it makes his stomach churn. He’s beside her in an instant, removing the IV from her arm and turning it off. He places one hand on hers and her head turns to look at him. Her eyes are wet with tears but they’re vacant, empty.

“Amy? Can you hear me? It’s Derek.”

“ _Derek…_ ” she breathed, her jaw trembling. “ _He’s… dead…_ ”

Derek nods, “He’s dead, garga’a… he’s dead.”

Tears come next and she’s reaching for him, falling from her seat into his arms and sobbing into his chest as he rubs her back and nuzzles her gently.

“It’s alright, h’garga’a…”

“I’m all alone,” she whimpered. “Just like before.”

He breathed and kissed her hair, “Not alone. A’ravi, I told you that. I meant that.”

She shuddered against him, her sobbing not quieting even as the door opened and a man, a lycan, in a suit so expensive he was definitely more than a case worker came in. He looked at Amy in his arms, the IV and then to Derek with a bit of shock, stepping back, his hand closing tightly on the screen in his hand.

“She’s meant to be on IV.”

“Due to the Elders’ neglect, I believe she’s had enough wolfsbane in her system, or have you all still not processed and investigated her case?”

The man stiffened and went to the chair, sitting down and Derek wanted to kill him, looking at them both and taking notes. He had no doubt that it was a report to the elders about Derek’s new condition.

“Contrary to your beliefs, Mr. Hale, we have investigated Amy McCane’s past per your last request.”

“Then why was she sent back to that monster?” Derek asked growling at the man. “What more evidence did you need?”

“Amy McCane is a long standing of the alliance as was Agent Dean. She was brought in at a very young age, back before the current regulatory measures. Her case was never brought to our attention before now.”

 _As had his,_ Derek thought bitterly. They hadn’t checked in, they hadn’t done anything but play nice with the alliance instead of protecting their own. He knew that.

“We searched for her family, only to find that she is the last of her pack as it was wiped out by hunters in the last war. She was brought into the alliance after their deaths.”

Derek felt the energy beneath his skin, trying to keep calm if only not to alert Amy, “ _You_ brought in a lycan who’d just lost her pack into the Alliance?”

The man shrugged, “We were desperate to fill the quotas. It gave her purpose.”

Derek slid his hand into Amy’s hair, “It destroyed her even further and the fact that you--”

He took a breath. That wouldn’t help, “She has no relatives at all?”

“Except for your family, albeit very distantly, no.”

“That’s fine,” he said. “She needs to be in therapy--”

Amy seized shaking her head furiously, “No. Won’t. Can’t--”

“We’ve tried, she will not go. It is apparently a trigger.”

Derek looked at her stroking her hair.

“Astad lo?” Derek asked.

She nodded, “il’to nue.”

 _Alone,_ he nodded in understanding and looked at the man.

“I assume you have access to my file as well.”

The man swiped his hand across the screen and nodded, “You also refused treatment, taking only what was required by the alliance.”

“I will find her somewhere to go, we’ll go together.” Derek said and looked at Amy as she looked at him.

“A Il’to,” he said. _With you._ “Nue il’to nue.”

She swallowed nodding slowly and he gave her a smile, stroking her hair.

“As she is a ward of the elders, we will need documentation.”

“I’ll get it to you before the weekend. I’m taking her with me today.”

“Fine,” the man said and stood. “That will get the ball rolling on her re-enrollment into the program.”

Derek snorted, “She’s not going back to being an agent.”

“You have no right to say so--”

“I do when it comes out everything you and the alliance has allowed to happen to her. And I promise that is far more than just simple neglect.”

“Are you threatening the Elders?”

Derek laughed, “What was your first clue?”

He stood, lifting Amy into his arms as she dozed and headed towards the door, opening it. He breezes past the receptionist who only gives him a suspicious look as he walks out with Amy in his arms and heads straight for his car parked outside the compound. He gets her into the passenger seat and climbs behind the wheel. It’s Sunday, supposedly a day off, but he’d also had plans with Kaila. It was to plan James’s birthday, he was turning fourteen years old in a few weeks and had no idea that it was happening. When he arrived in front of the house, the door opens and its Kaila looking at him and the woman he’s helping get out of the passenger seat.

“You look like hell.”

Derek nodded, “It’s been a rough night… we need to talk.”

Kaila looked at the oddly silent woman and nodded. Derek managed to wrangle up a change of clothes for Amy and directed her towards a bathroom before pulling his overnight bag from the trunk and taking over the other bathroom and showering as quickly as he could before pulling on his clothing.

By then the kids are awake and talking animatedly about their days, their school life, and how happy they are to see him. He’s roped into helping with breakfast before going to check on Amy. She’d gotten dressed, but had not managed to do much else before the children were bombarding her with questions. Adam’s children had always been bubbly and before Derek could step in, she was smiling and answering them kindly. They took her by the hand and led her towards the dining room to partake in the breakfast feast. James came downstairs, Brooke behind him. he was rushing, shoveling food into his mouth, greeting Derek, kissing his mother, ruffling hair and out the door.

“He and Alex are supposed to be hanging out, “Brooke offered in explanation before greeting Amy with a smile.

Breakfast passed with the kids asking Amy a million questions and eventually convincing her to come outside and play with them. Derek, Kaila and Brooke sat at the dining room table, drinking coffee and listening to the sound of them outside. Derek supposed that Emilia was either at work or with Adam in the hospice.

“I’ve already called Liam,” Kaila said. “He should be here soon.”

Derek figured. Liam was always quick to come in and assess the situation, it was the reason, he thought, that the man had become the Alpha of the Hale Pack. It was hard, he was sure, as there were no other alphas left in the family and that meant no infrastructure to field less major concerns. Liam, for as long as he’d been alpha, never seemed to be inundated, but he knew that it had taken a toll on the man. When he arrived, he was all smiles and warm, physical greetings before laying eyes on Derek and going as pale as he had when he’d realized that Derek was no longer a blue eyed omega.

“ _Derek_ ,” he breathed. “ _What…?_ ”

“You… might want to sit down for this,” Derek said. “Maybe pour yourself a drink.”

Liam almost groaned, but took a seat and settled for Brooke’s famous hot chocolate.

“Blue eyed, lost wolf, or possessed?”

“Hale Fire,” Derek replied and the three of them looked at him.

“Who did you kill?” Liam asked. “And tell me that it was for a good reason--”

Derek stayed silent offering his hand and letting his wolf rise just barely to the surface. Liam swallowed and took a breath, before laying his hand on Derek’s. There was no death aura, no sense of it still settling, getting used to a new body. this wasn’t an alpha spark that had been stolen or passed in the last moments of life… it was brand new.

“Oh _Ravi…_ ”Liam said.

“What?” Kaila asked looking between the two.

“I broke a mountain ash barrier to get to my partner,” Derek said softly. “And now…”

“That’s _impossible_ ,” Brooke said, shaking her head. “When?”

“Last night,” Derek said with a breath. “I didn’t even… realize until he told me that my eyes were glowing red.”

Liam shook his head, “Please tell there’s something else? Can we come back to this?”

He nodded, “There’s Amy McCane… she was a part of a pack that was wiped out by hunters in the last war, I bet Argents, and the elders sent her into the force.”

Liam sat back, there was just no winning and as Derek told him exactly what he thought had transpired between Dean, the deceased partner, and Amy, he felt even sicker.

“She needs a pack,” Derek said. “And apparently we’re the closest relation.”  
Liam breathed out with a nod, “Yes. I suppose so. Argents only really targeted families affiliated with the Hale Pack.”

“I’m arranging for her to go to therapy,” Derek said.

“That’s a great step, but… therapy is a rather… lonely thing.”

“Group therapy,” Derek said and added without meeting anyone’s eyes. “With me.”

They were quiet watching him. There was obviously no romantic interest in the woman, but he knew they were of kindred spirits. The fact that he was not only considering but _planning_ to go to therapy after all these years and actually try, made their hearts stutter. He flushed and scowled at them.

“Don’t look so shocked.”

“Anything you need?” Liam asked. “Is she… your beta?”

He frowned at that, he hadn’t considered that but he supposed that she was, “She acts like it…”

Liam nodded, “Well… let me meet the woman and then we’ll talk just you and I.”

Derek nodded and headed outside to wave Amy in from running around the yard with the kids. The yard was really a communal space behind a full block of houses, all occupied by lycans and their families. A small playground and trees was enough to keep children occupied and close enough that they could be watched. Amy and the kids raced back to the porch and she froze moments before stepping on to the porch, meeting eyes with Liam and then quickly looking away towards the ground. He stepped forward and her entire body shook with the need to run and stay still at the same time. Her eyes flickered to Derek who only smiled.

“ _Uil_ ,” he said. “This is my uncle, Alpha Liam Hale of the Hale Pack.”

She looked at the older man who looked at her, his eyes red and there was something more than just the sense of recognizing pack tugging at her. Liam offered his hand to her.

“H’oqan, _Ama’va._ ”

Derek, Brooke and Kaila’s jaw dropped while the kids raced off to meet up with friend on the other side of the area. How the hell did Liam know her spirit’s name? Why was he saying they were meeting again? For heaven’s sake that was only possible from parent to child or…

 _No fucking way_ , Derek thought feeling his smile start and widen. _No fucking way._

There was no way that by sheer, dumb luck, and a mishandling on the side of the alliance, that he’d found and brought home his uncle’s _mate._ The world just couldn’t be that small, but there was no doubting it unless Liam had had children when he was… two or three years old. Lycan spirits were thought to be always mated, as wolves mated for life and spirit mated for life, they would always be mated to one other spirit with few exceptions. It may have been one reason that lycans that lost their true mates often had a shorter refractory period than humans that lost spouses. To them it was just one of many painful farewells with the promise to meet again in another life.

“Derek,” Kaila said as Liam and Amy shook hands, staring at each other in something like wonder and awe. “Do you see what’s happening?”

He blinked, letting his wolf rise to the surface and yes, he could see the wisps of their wolves twining around one another, binding them in that moment, twisting around their clasped hands. It was true. Holy shit. He nodded slowly and Kaila gaped...It was true then... Derek had become an alpha. Their hands fell apart slowly before Liam was shaking his head clear and a strong blush rushed across her cheeks as she looked away.

There had been something, strong, a pull that she couldn’t explain from the moment they met eyes. It made her warm and made her burn, but more than that it frightened her. This man was an alpha, the Alpha of the Hale Pack and probably had more money, power, and influence than she could fathom. More than that, he probably at the very least had a girlfriend from a nice pack, a nice home, a nice background… Someone that Amy was not and accepted that.

She looked to Derek for help, but as their eyes met he only smiled.

“ _Uil,_ ” he said.

“As my… nephew has explained, you are in need of a pack, as we are your nearest relatives, albeit extremely distantly, it is my duty as alpha to offer you a place with us.”

She swallowed and felt her eyes burn as she nodded slowly, hopeful and slightly distressed.

“May I?”

She nodded, not exactly sure what to expect when Liam began to scent mark her. Liam smiled gently at her, stepping closer, crowding into her space and swiping his hands over her face and neck gently, but at every pass she felt herself quaking, quivering, her wolf curling up tighter in her chest, shying away from the warm presence.

But then he was holding her, pulling her up against him, to wedge his face at the junction of her shoulder and rub his face there until she smelled like a perfect mix of their scents. It was heady and he heard himself make a content rumble in his chest before drawing back to look at her. She was flushed, staring up at him with needy and fearful eyes.

“Welcome to the pack,” he said gently. “Do you have a place to stay?”

She nodded slowly, “My… uhm... handler's apartment is where I’ve been living.”

He stiffened, “I’m… sure we can fix that. I’ll arrange things with Derek, for now… carry on.”

She nodded slowly as he stepped back, forcing each leg backwards until he could force himself to turn. His wolf thrashed angrily, possessively, clawing at his sanity to turn back, demand answers, hold her, but Liam had years of experience dealing with his wolf.

 _She is pack now,_ he soothed. _We will see her again._

He growled low and angry as Liam ushered Derek back into the house. Brooke and Kaila stayed outside to talk with Amy about practically anything they could get out of the woman, hugging her, settling her in between them all so she would begin to smell like all of them.

Though they did not all den together, or anywhere remotely stable, they still retained that communal scent simply from being family and of course the once in a while get together between pieces of the family. They hadn’t had a full Hale get together since the fire. Liam steered him towards the small parlor in the front of the house and takes the seat closest to the window.

“I’m sorry,” Derek started. “I didn’t know.”

He drew a hand through his hair, a familiar movement that brought a smile to Liam’s lips.

“Talia would do that,” Liam said. “When she was nervous.”

Derek did his best not to think about it, but sat down and waited.

“Things are going to change drastically,” Liam started. “This is… far different than you being a blue-eyed omega.”

He nodded slowly, he’d known that.

“Tell me from the beginning,” he said and sat back.

Derek took a breath and told him everything that happened, adding in all the details of every moment and finding himself standing, pacing as he got towards the end. His hands messing up his hair even more than usual, nervous strides around the room. Liam could practically see his wolf pacing as well.

“ _Derek_ ,” Liam said with a smile. “Breathe.”

He shook his head, “I can’t. This is much larger than I thought it was...I didn’t even think about what would happen to Scott and Kira…”

Liam waited hearing Derek’s voice go into a spiral of possibilities and when Derek told him exactly who he was talking about Liam understood. It was chilling, a little awe inspiring… but there was no mistaking it: Derek had forged himself into an alpha on his own…

“Derek, can you hear what you’re saying?’

Derek looked at him.

“You said nothing about what the Alliance or what the Elders will do to you… but what will happen to everyone who depends on you…”

Derek blinked.

“Your anxiety is unfounded,” Liam told him. “It seems that without ever realizing it, you’ve made yourself an alpha in the eyes of many. This appears to just be a foregone conclusion, a spiritual understanding that you needed the power to do what you’ve always done.”

Derek swallowed, blinking at him, “What are you saying?”

“Means we’re going to have a family get together and announce you dear nephew,” he said softly. “Also means that I’ll be giving you a lot of work to do.”

He laughed then, “That’s what this is really about… you getting to take a vacation.”

He nodded, “Oh yeah, sit back, relax and apparently court.”

Derek nodded, “Yeah… I noticed that.”

He laughed, “It isn’t my fault.”

“I know.”

***

Liam left a few hours later after subtly hovering and making sure to touch Amy as much as possible before he left. He sent Derek information to access the way he manages things and told him that he’d start training him before the week was out. Derek drove Amy to the small, rundown apartment building that she and Dean used to occupy and took the keys from her.

“Is there anything in there that you really need?” Derek asked, turning to her.

“My trunk…” she said softly. “It was my father’s…”

Derek nodded, grateful that she had something that she truly cherished. He climbed the steps two at a time to reach the correct floor and almost hissed at the thick smell of wolfsbane, metal and gunpowder: beer, flowers, and otherwise. He covered his mouth and headed past the refuse, the scattered beer cans and into the bedroom. He felt sick, pulling his phone out to record his journey through the chaos that was the house. Dishes piled up take-out boxes everywhere, but the bedroom was spotless. The bed was made neatly and there was the smell of blood and panic that had seeped into the sheets. He found the trunk in the compartment she’d told him about at the back of the closet. It was a tiny cupboard filled with rolled up blankets, the trunk was behind all of that. A grand chest engraved with McCane on the lid. He pulled it out and carried it out with him, speaking calmly about what he could tell.

“There’s ammonia, and blood in the air, its stale but there. The room obviously doesn’t look like anyone sleeps in it, more like a room used for other purposes.”

He ended the recording and headed down stairs with the trunk, keeping the key and loading the trunk into the back seat before heading towards Liam’s condo where Amy would be staying with a few of his other relatives without a place to stay. He would stay as well to make sure she was comfortable.

They sat on the couch together, looking through the list of group lycan therapy in the area until they could both agree on one, one suggested by Liam to be specific and sent in the documentation to the Lycan Elders. It was obvious that they weren’t happy with the choice, but couldn’t argue much with it.

When Amy settled in for sleep, Derek did his best to explain his new state to his cousins while taking direction from Liam about a myriad of things regarding running the pack, things he would have to know to function as an alpha of the Hale Pack. He played with his younger cousins, feeding tiny babbling children and hearing that one of his cousins was pregnant, expecting the child before Christmas. Derek laughed hugging the woman, it was amazing. He hugged her husband too and their kids. A perfect new start to what could be the rebuilding of the Hale pack.

Stiles woke up to Scott and Kira in the hospital room with him, John was gone to help with collecting evidence and canvassing.

“Hey bro,” Scott said, squeezing his hand and lifting his gun to set in Stiles’s lap. “Derek said you’d be looking for this.”

He nodded slowly, gripping it in his hand, “Thank you…”

“What happened?” Scott asked. “No one would really give us any answers and Derek… he felt a little weird.”

Stiles took a breath and made himself sit up, gritting his teeth against the pain, “Derek… Derek became an alpha.”

Scott blinked, “ _What?_ ”

***

“Welcome to Moonlit revival,” the woman said, wearing forest green scrubs.

The woman wasn’t lycan, but she wasn’t human either, he bet Druid or a pixie maybe. Amy trembled a bit as Derek shook her hand and followed her through the building.

“We’ve received both your files and collected a few statements from your co-workers, the Elders and of course your alpha and set you up with group therapy as you’ve requested. The first part is an interview with our therapists so we can know where you are. They’re basic questions, nothing to be frightened about.”

Derek knew that wouldn’t quell Amy’s fear and he turned towards her, “I’ll be right outside.”

She nodded slowly and followed the woman into the room as Derek sat down and waited.  He let his senses wander as a woman sat down beside him.

“Hello Derek,” he turned his head to look at the woman. He didn’t recognize her on sight, but it was obvious that the woman knew him.

“How do you know me?”  
“You uncle has been organizing your enrollment here for years,” she said and offered her hand. “I’m Julia. I’ll be your therapist.”

He shook her hand, “Nice to meet you… is it normal for you to meet patients outside a room?”

She smiled, “You nor your wolf would do well in a therapy room right now… too much like a cage.”

He swallowed, “You’ve… done your homework.”

She nodded, “Your uncle loves you dearly and was more than happy to fight for the records to be transferred to me, but the facts aren’t important so much as what you felt.”

Derek swallowed thickly and she smiled at him, standing,“Consider this your interview, Derek. I think you’ll like it here. Until we meet again, I’m sure Heather will take great care of you.”

Derek nodded as the door opened and Amy came out laughing, a piece of candy in her mouth and she came to Derek.

“Not so scary?”

She shook her head with a smile and linked arms with him, leading him out behind Heather towards the outdoors where everyone else and lunch was taking place. The place wasn’t just for lycans, though the therapy group they were in was all lycan… at least that’s what he thought.

The first session was a mixed group, basic introductions were passed around and they talked. None of them had been agents, which made he and Amy sort of the odd ones out, but no one seemed to care. He felt like it was more of a debate circle, talking about supernatural rights and the problems they faced when encountered with humans and even other supernaturals.

The next group he and Amy were split and he was thrown into a fully male group, led by a male therapist, it wasn’t fully lycan, but it became obvious that the group was geared towards those that had suffered at the hands of the opposite sex in very specific ways. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and he felt his entire body tensing, ready to run out of the room, he could feel himself practically shaking in his seat. No one pointed it out, no one looked particularly comfortable either, but he grit his teeth when it came to him to speak.

“My name’s Derek, I’m twenty one…”

“Can you give us a name?”

His jaw trembled, stiffening, his eyes grew dark and he looked towards the windows, his arms cross if only to keep himself from shaking. His claws extended, digging into his sides, holes in the Henley he wore as he breathed.

“Kate,” he said. “Kate Argent.”

The man nodded, “Good.”

They moved on to the next person, but the feeling didn’t ease and all too soon the circle was directing their attentions back to him and he shook his head stiffly.

“Alright,” the man said and continued. “When you’re ready.”

Derek wasn’t sure how he’d managed to stay in the seat through the entire hour hearing snippets of everyone’s experiences before being the first one out the door, going outside immediately to breathe deeply and try and get a hold on his need to shift. Things were so simple when he was in his shift, emotions, logic, everything simplified: yes or no, good or bad, instinct or knowledge.

But apparently, he wasn’t the only one as Amy was sitting in the grass, curled up on her side with nurses around her, stroking her hair as she trembled. Derek raced across the field to lay a hand on her spine.

“ _Amy? Can you hear me?_ ” he whispered. “Amy?”

She turned in a flurry to latch onto him, trembling as he stroked her hair and let her curl up to him.

“Want to go for a run?” He asked gently.

She nodded quickly, shifting in his arms and taking off.  The nurses looked between him and the silver white streak  as he grabbed her clothes and set them on the nearest table and ran after her. He didn’t shift, needing to keep his logical mind at the forefront as he ran to catch up with her. She was fast, but Derek caught up with her. She wasn’t trying to run from him, just be freed from what was essentially her past, just a little bit.

They circled back in time for their final session before they were interviewed with their individual therapists and got her dressed, maybe a little calmer or at least a little more at ease. It was a mixed gender group, all lycan, all who’d been on the edge of feral, had been pushed there for whatever reason. Jackson was there to his surprise and that may have made the entire experience more bearable.

“You in therapy?” Jackson asked. “The sky must be falling.”

Derek shook his head and said nothing as Jackson frowned and looked at him, tilting his head, not entirely sure what it was, but there was something different. Something instinctual that Jackson couldn’t name that had changed drastically in him.

“Derek…”

He shook his head and took a seat, Amy in between the two of them who smiled at him kindly and Jackson shook his head.

“You smell like you just got back from a run.”

“We did.”

They played games card games, board games that ended in laughter and a little anger. Apparently, people didn’t appreciate being cheated in Candyland or Monopoly. Chess was interesting as was checkers. Being alone with a therapist however was the most interesting part.

Amy’s therapist’s office was half nature, open ceiling a large tree formed the table, it appeared to be more of a meditation room. Julia, however, had a section of the forest as her “office space”. A large tree big and sturdy enough to climb up and lounge on.

“Come on up,” she said with a smile. Derek climbed up and once he was settled she told him to speak his mind.

“I don’t really like… therapy.”

She laughed, “No one really likes therapy, but it doesn’t have to be unpleasant. This goes as fast or as slow as you’d like it to.”

Derek breathed, “I don’t like thinking about it… any of it.”

“Why not?”

_Because… it’s frustrating, because it hurts, because I’m afraid of remembering everything of what it would do to me to know exactly what they did to me… what Kate did to me. The parts I did and didn’t like… the way I just--the way they controlled me. I’m…_

He shook his head, not admitting the word, “I just don’t.”

Julia knew there was more to it than that, but she didn’t push, merely guiding him around the edges of his fears and anxieties so she could figure out where they were as well. They talked a lot about his family, his partnership with Stiles, Scott and Kira before it was announced that the session was over and he was free to go.

That night, Derek settled down for sleep and found that soft pink lips, a pink tongue sliding across his neck, speaking softly, breathless and his own ragged breathing filled his ears.

 _I love you…_ the voice said and Derek’s eyes opened sitting up on a deep breath, heaving, his heart stuttering. He cursed, dragging a hand through his hair.

What the fuck was he thinking?


	12. If I Can’t Feel Him In My Veins—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fucking Alliance, Fucking Lycan Elders, Fucking Kate... and well... what else is there really to say?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being away so long. I will finish this story. I promise, it's just taking a little longer because of other things.

When Derek wakes up, it’s to the sound of silence in the condo. There are three more heartbeats than when he went to sleep.  _ Shit.  _ He rises, showers and gets dressed to face the three Alliance representatives that have come to collect him. 

“Derek Hale,” the man said slowly. “Are you aware of why we’re here?”

“Other than to ruin breakfast and terrorize my family?” Derek asked gesturing to the wide-eyed toddlers shaking and fidgeting in their seats, even as they growled at the three men. 

“ _ Unple Therek, no go. _ ”

He smiled and stroked their hair, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of their heads.

“I’ll be alright,” he said gently, casting a glance to her mother and then moving to stroke Amy’s head. “Let them take care of you.”

She nodded stiffly but almost refused to release him as he shrugged on his leather jacket and followed the trio out the door. They caged him in as they walked to the elevator and forced him into the car. He could hear Rhia’s wails for him from down stairs as they held her up to the window. He blew her a kiss and waved with a smile. The drive to the Lycan Elder Compound was a long one, or at least if felt long with the suspense hanging in the air. When they arrived, he was quickly hustled into the building and straight to the testing room. The woman in a lab coat instructed her assistants to strip him to his underwear and put him on the table. 

“How long will I be here?” Derek asked as she jabbed a needle in his arm.

“As long as the Elders deem necessary.”

Derek really didn’t appreciate that, but as the world began to go dark, he knew that it made no difference. They had to be sure that he hadn’t killed anyone and that it was all true after all. 

His civil rights bedamned.

***

The tests didn’t add up and after days of it, there didn’t seem to be any fluke. In all the measurable ways, Derek had become and alpha through sheer will alone. Which was supposed to be impossible. Alphas were born, bred, and carefully managed by the Lycan Elders so they wouldn’t abuse their powers or go rogue against the Alliance.  They weren’t just created. There could have been an explanation for it such as the fact that his mother had been an Alpha, as had his older sister. Perhaps with their deaths, and the death of his Uncle Peter, the Alpha spirit had chosen him as its carrier until someone else in the Hale line was strong enough.

But that didn’t make any sense either as Peter had stolen it from Laura Hale who’d inherited from her mother and Liam, Derek’s uncle and Talia’s third oldest brother, had inherited, verifiably, a male Hale alpha spirit. And it had been  _ years _ since Peter died, why would it have chosen now to enter Derek? No one was entirely sure what happened to the female alpha spirit that Talia possessed or any of the other alpha spirits of the Hale line that had been murdered in the fire, but none of that really mattered.

Alpha powers were supposed to be passed down through the bloodlines from mother to daughter or father to son. Cross gender alpha transfers were high unstable and dangerous. It had been what killed Peter Hale in the end, yet Derek was not only male, but the  _ youngest  _ male born to Talia Hale and her husband. The literal runt of the litter, not only that but Derek’s alpha spirit wasn’t one that existed alongside his wolf like the others, like any inherited or stolen spirits did, but had fused with, or had been born from, Derek’s wolf… as if his wolf had made itself an alpha: a brand new alpha spirit. 

There hadn’t been one of those since the beginning of the lycan race thousands of years ago. No records of how it happened, or what the dangers could be existed. They could guess that in order to steal Derek’s alpha spirit, they would have to steal his wolf as well…Only a human would be able to take it in as any other lycan would be destroyed as the wolves fought for territory, yet even that possibility seemed distant as a wolf who has fought for the blessing of Ravi, a blessing that they were not meant to receive but were literally blessed with… they weren’t entirely sure what Derek really was. 

The older members of the Elders whispered the notion of a “true” alpha around the room,  _ the one blessed by Ravi _ , both a glorious and terrifying thing. True Alphas, in legend, were a sign that the alphas in command were found wanting in the eyes of Ravi such that a brand new one had to be created… It also usually meant something horrible was coming that required a new kind of alpha. But beyond that there was nothing on it… all of those books were kept under lock and key in the Hale Family Vault as it had been their ancestor that became the very first alpha… or at least that was how the legend went. 

Either way, Derek presented a problem if he could not be corrupted. Though he had lost nearly everything, even Derek was not immune to venality, they were sure. There had to be something that he wanted above all else that they had. Some glimmering thing that tethered him to his humanity. He hadn’t lost everything had he?

Derek woke up, his body aching and the taste of magic in his mouth. His wolf was unsettled, restive in his chest as he sat up and was told that he could get dressed and the Elders would see him.

“My shoes?”

“They will be given to you when you enter the Elders’ hall.”

He rolled his eyes at that, since when did they make people walk around barefoot? Seems like the superiority complex had been inflated even more since the last time he’d had to deal with them. Sliding into his clothes he walked behind the woman towards the door and stepped into the hall. 

“All alphas registered with the lycan elders have been accounted for,” the one in the middle said. “Should we find that your ascension is a result of a murdering of an alpha, you will be punished.”

“And if you don’t?” He asked looking at them all. “What happens then?”

“We will make that decision when there is a need. You may go.”

He almost wanted to roll his eyes, taking his shoes from the woman who’d brought them and walking out to the front to collect his Alliance gear and pull on his socks and boots. They offer him an escort, but he refuses it, walking out into the late daylight. Derek headed to the Hale territory as fast as his legs could carry him, he just needed to breathe. The construction crew waved fondly at him as he passed. He marched to the back where the venerable Hale cemetery was and felt the spirits of his ancestors surround him with worry. He stepped towards the row where his mother was buried and kneeled.

“I wish you were here…. all of you. You would know what to say, what to do…. How to get through this… I know you can tell... “

He breathed out, feeling the thrumming just beneath his skin, shaking him from the core outwards. Becoming a blue eye omega was nothing like this, nothing at all. This was an entirely different instinct, pressing on his old ones, incorporating the others and strengthening itself… as if making a pack within himself.

“What’s happening to me?”

There was a ghostly howl sent up and he felt their meaning, the will of Ravi was happening. He stood and turned, walking back through the construction site to check in with them all and headed back towards Liam’s condo. He could hear Liam pacing, talking with someone and bouncing a baby in his arms as she cried, another wail joining it. 

_ “Unple Therek… _ ”

He took the elevator, slumping against the back of the elevator and breathing before stumbling towards the condo’s door and calling through it.

“It’s Derek,” he said and the door opened to see Amy who hugged him tightly. “I’m alright… Just tired… really tired.”

They pulled him inside and settled him on the couch, settling the twin girls in his arm as he hushed them. 

“ _ It’s okay little ones. I’m here. I’m alright… _ ”

They nuzzled him, up against his bare neck, their arms around him, sniffling and drying their tears on his shirt and eventually falling asleep. Clinging to him in their sleep, comforted by their mingled scents, he wouldn’t be surprised if they wolfed out if he attempted to get them off, but he was more than content to lounge on the couch with them clinging to him. 

“They haven’t been sleeping well since they took you,” Brooke said. “You look terrible.”

He nodded, “I feel it too… and hungry.”

Kaila brought him a thick cut steak, potatoes, and a heap of spinach promising more if he wanted as Liam settled across the chair. He ate as best he could with the two in his lap and felt infinitely better. He had three more full plates before he felt a little more lycan and less like death.

“I’ll put them to bed,” Derek said, lifting them and carrying them down the hall, careful to place them in their crib and pull his leather jacket off and laying it over them. 

They snuggled a little closer together and grumbled as he kissed their heads and headed back out into the living room. He told them he’d be back, but he had to check in with his team and probably stop his partner from causing trouble. 

“Your phone has been ringing off and on for the last few days…”

Derek grimaced seeing the messages from Scott, Kira, Stiles, and Jackson, text messages and video messages. He called Scott first, picking up his keys and hugging them all goodbye with a promise to be back for dinner. 

“ _ Derek? You still alive? We’ve been calling and Stiles-- _ ”

“I’m alright Scott, where are you?”

“ _ At the hospital, _ ” he said. “ _ Trying to –Stiles, you can’t leave! _ ”

Derek shook his head, turning towards the hospital and before he’d even parked, he could hear Stiles arguing with a doctor.

“I am fine! They’re like really big ornate papercuts, and maybe large holes throwing off my balance, but that is what walking sticks are for--I am  _ fine.  _  What isn’t fine is that my partner could be dying somewhere--I don’t have time for stupid hospital gowns and  _ rest _ !”

Derek walked up the steps and into the lobby where Stiles was holding on to his IV tower and stumbling towards the front entrance in a paper gown and scrub pants. He stopped seeing Derek, without his leather jacket, in a plain black henley and breathed.

“ _ Derek… _ ” It came and then the yelp as a nurse stabbed him with a needle full of a tranquilizer. Derek rushed forward to catch him. Scott and Kira let out a deep breath and Derek smiled.

“Seems like things get crazy when I’m not around…”

Scott let out a nervous laugh as Derek twisted Stiles into his arms and lifted, careful of his wounds. Scott took command of the IV tower and they headed back to Stiles’s room to get him settled in bed again, adjusting the blankets.

“ _ Derek...bad…idea... _ ”

Somehow he wasn't surprised that even in his sleep the other was planning and telling Derek that his plans were terrible. It made him smile a bit. Scott and Kira were called away but notified him that they were on some sort of probation until Stiles was healed fully and to look after him. Scott gave him an odd look as if he wanted to ask to be sure, but bit his lip and smiled, waving him goodbye. 

He’d have to talk with Scott soon it seemed, but at the moment his job was to keep Stiles in bed and recovering. He knew that the efforts to find the man that had kidnapped him were going nowhere, but Derek remembered the smell of the man and if he ever ran across him again, he’d be sure to thrash him and  _ then  _ take him to receive his justice.

Stiles grumbled awake a few hours later, complaining of the grogginess and the haze that refused to be lifted.

“That’s what happens when you try and leave before you’re fully healed,” Derek said. “How are you feeling?”

“Like someone tranq’d me…” Stiles said with a groan and looked at him. “How are you?”

Derek smiled, close lipped and tense and Stiles sat up, “They called you in?”

“Came to collect me actually,” Derek said. “Probably… got me tagged some sort of way too.”

Stiles winced, “But… you’re still alive.”

He nodded, “For now.”

“What did they say?”

“Nothing.”

Stiles nodded, nothing was better than “off with your little wolfy head”, but not much better. It meant they were waiting, on what he wasn’t sure but it didn’t sit well with him to wait to find out either--

“You’re somehow louder when you’re not talking,” he said, almost amused. “Stop thinking and just say it.”

“Do they think… it had something to do with your last partnerships?”

Derek stiffened and blinked as Stiles looked at him.

“What do you know about them?” Derek asked.

Stiles shook his head, “I didn’t look them up or anything… I get these… pictures sometimes when I’m asleep… and there’s a woman and I feel so… empty and dark, lost really. And I hear your voice saying "Kate”...”

Derek took a breath and closed his eyes.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it--”

“Why would you thrust Kira’s sword into Scott’s stomach?”

Stiles swallowed, his heart kicking up and Derek watched him as Stiles took a breath, looking at the folds of the blankets.

“I was sixteen,” he said. “The...Alliance had accidentally released a spirit that was trapped in the Nemeton… It got into HQ and crazy things started happening… It had possessed a girl, she was a part of the bridge program, but she couldn’t contain it...I took her place.”

Derek winced, as Stiles looked at him, “How long?”

“Almost a year… I was lucky, it was right after my birthday and right before my birthday…”

Derek nodded slowly, “Is that why you don’t sleep very much?’

Stiles nodded, “You could tell?”

He nodded, “You always smell tired even though you don’t act like it.”

Stiles shrugged, “I drink a lot of coffee… and try to take my adderall in between that.”

Derek nodded and slid forward in his seat to take his hand, “You were rather brave to take on a demonic spirit…”

He nodded and smiled, “I think the Alliance likes to mock me about it though.”

Derek frowned, “Why is that?”

“Nogitsune,” Stiles said. “The demonic spirit was a nogitsune.”

Derek nodded, “Glad to see my hatred for the alliance is well founded…”

Stiles laughed and maybe Derek, in the spirit of fairness, or because they’d already been through so much together let out another breath and began to speak.

“Kate...Argent,” Derek started, swallowing. “Was… the very first partner I’d ever had. I was… fifteen or so when we were paired and for a long time we were great.”

He swallowed down the sick feeling and stood unable to face him as he spoke. They’d been great for a while all the way up until the alliance began talking about a promotion and his mother wanted him to become a part of the pack infrastructure. He’d told Kate about it, but he’d had no real way of knowing what that would do to Kate’s psyche. 

“She snapped… she got colder… and the more I tried to reach out… the more I reached for her… until I was practically always running after her...I thought… I thought I loved her, in the way a fifteen year old had a crush on an older woman…”

Stiles watched him the line of tension as he hung his head. 

“And it was that way until the fire… and then she changed…”

He let out another breath, refusing to tremble at the memories. The nights afterwards when they’d been sent overseas after the fire. The raging cruelty and the moments of kindness that had made him weep. How lonely, how lost and how  _ easy  _  it had been for her to control him. She was the only one left, the only person he had left after his family was practically destroyed. Because of his job, he rarely saw the remaining members of the family, only his uncle Liam, Kaila and Brooke had been able to check on him. Emilia had been leading the charge to find the culprits, organizing the burials…

He hadn’t even been able to come home for the full ceremony. He’d managed a few moments before she was pulling him back into the back haze of servitude. Wolfsbane spray when he did something she didn’t like, knives, bullets as punishment, food as a reward. She’d trained him as a perfect attack animal. Being overseas in a long term assignment meant that it was nearly impossible to contact anyone. He didn’t want to, too ashamed of how many times she’d beaten him with wolfsbane laced whips and floggers, how she’d rode him and never let him come, stabbing him with wolfsbane serums to stave off orgasm… The way she fucked him with mountain ash and wolfsbane strap-ons, poles. The way he’d screamed and begged, promising her anything to just stop--wishing he was dead, but not strong enough to end it, not strong enough to do anything but bear it. Wishing he’d just burned to death with his family, feeling like he had...

“It was that way for three years... and then… there were poachers…”

Stiles frowned. 

“And she was bored with me.”

He swallowed as Derek hung his head, closing his eyes against the memories and hearing the words. She’d brought him there, not undercover, just there with the full intent to sell him. Sell him sexually to a group of men, then to the poachers. They weren’t short on money, not since the last time she’d sold him to a group of older women who liked the way he looked strung out on pain, half feral, and terrified of displeasing Kate.

“They’d told her what they would do to me…” he said. “And she bargained for each piece of me to get the best price... I wasn’t sure what part of me understood what was happening, but I can still hear the screaming.”

The sound of bounty hunters and the police after the poachers… the screaming and shooting, his own claws tearing, breaking the leash and how his claws had come clean off against the mountain chain they’d used to bind him. How he’d roared in pain and how it fed his rage. The chains didn’t break by his claws, but he tore them from the steel blocks they’d had him tied to and he tore through the poachers with bloody fingernails. The wolfsbane in his blood slowed his regenerations, but his bare hands were good enough--strong enough. He remembered the way they smelled of lycan blood once they realized that they’d been caught. The way they attacked Kate. Her voice commanding him to save her, to help. He’d screamed no and watched, blood soaked and angry, growling as they stabbed her through the chest. He’d wanted to go to her, to save her, leech her pain to scream don’t leave me. Don’t leave me!... but the wolf had won out and he watched her breathe her last breath. In all the chaos, the officers were more or less unable to do anything. Derek had dragged her by the hair, what was left of her body, when the poachers had gotten through with her, when Derek had gotten through watching the police fire shots through the air… She was hardly recognizable, he was hardly recognizable. Not shifted, but stark naked and silent, his fist curled in blood slick strands and marching out of the building. He’d been eighteen and the embassy found him in the records, the woman who’d interviewed him had been there. Apparently, they had been classified as M.I.A. or rogue when Kate stopped checking in. He dropped her body in front of the awaiting Alliance officers and took their blankets to wrap up with against the cold. They shipped him home in a carrier plane with Kate’s remains on ice across from him. 

“There were a few months that I wasn’t in connection with my wolf really…Not sure if it was because of all the wolfsbane in my system or just shock… After a while, they set me up with a partner, Jennifer, who tried to do the same… pulling handler rank and demanding that I wear her collar, not the generic lycan one. She actually shot me on our first meeting wolfsbane bullets… and magic…I didn’t move… but when she tried to force the collar around my neck… It was the first time my wolf reacted to anything in months… and he threw her across the room, broke three ribs and gave her a concussion….I realized what exactly I’d become then. A part of me panicked but there was a nihilistic high that came with it too...”

Stiles let out a low whistle, “Glad you like me then.”

He nodded, “She was definitely heavier than you.”

Stiles winced, “Would have liquified me then.”

Derek nodded, “Still could…”

Stiles shrugged, “True… Derek…”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for trusting me,” he said softly. “I know that isn’t easy.”

Derek let out a breath, “You did save my life…and it’s not as though I have a family house you could burn down.”

Stiles swallowed against the morbid humor of the line and refused to cry, Derek was vulnerable, letting himself be openly vulnerable in this moment. There was no reason for Stiles to cry. 

“I know what it means to lose family… And you saved me… we’re partners...Never in front or behind.”

Derek felt his mouth quirk up a little and turned slowly to lean against the window before heading back towards the bed and taking the seat closer to the bed.

“Enough story time,” Derek said. “Probably going to give you nightmares…”

Stiles snorted, “I’m not a kid.”

“Whatever,” Derek said, tucking him in and turning off the light above Stiles’s head and sitting down to stroke his hair until he went to sleep. “Sleep Stiles, you need to rest.”

He nodded, “You should sleep too.”

Derek laughed but when Stiles slid over and pat the empty space Derek wasn’t sure if he should indulge the other.

“I hear lycans love to cuddle.”

“I only cuddle children nowadays.”

“You treat me like a kid anyway,” he said. “I’m injured and I just had a near death experience -- spare me if I want another life form around to affirm that I’m still alive.”

Derek snorted, but toed off his boots and crawled up to lay beside Stiles.

“I have people waiting on me.”

“Just a nap then,” Stiles said. “Until I fall asleep.”

Derek nodded agreeing on the condition that Stiles did actually sleep. Within a few moments, he was so deep in sleep he didn’t think that anything Derek did would wake him. When he was sure that his scent had pretty much seeped into the sheets, Derek climbed out of the bed and readjusted Stiles to be comfortable before putting on his boots and leaving the room. 


	13. Leave Me Covered For Days,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fucking Alliance, Fucking Elders... Fucking Texas... 
> 
> Warning: If you're from Texas, I'm... sort of sorry I guess? But I think all Texans can agree that this isn't that far out there. (Yes, I am from Texas).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get some regularity with these posts... It doesn't seem to be working out. Sorry.... At least it's a long chapter, right?

Derek stayed with Kaila and Amy at Liam’s condo for another few weeks and every morning woke up the next morning with two tiny bodies cuddled up on either side. Sometimes Amy would join them as well. Kaila peaked in to see him and the twins there. Their tiny fists curled into his shirt in their sleep and cuddled so close that any move on his part would wake them. 

“I thought that’s where they ran off to. They do it to Liam too when he’s here.”

Derek smiled, “It’s fine.”

His phone rang gently and he snatched it up to answer and continue soothing the twins.

“Hale,” he said as Kaila snuck out promising breakfast. 

“Stilinski here,” Stiles’s voice came through the phone. “I’m being released from the hospital and the Alliance has an out of state-er for us.”

Derek almost groaned, but told him he’d be in and hung up. Kissing the twins and settling them back beneath the blankets, he crept from the room to head to the embassy. Amy and Liam were in the dining room with Kaila who was making breakfast. Liam watched Amy across the table, who did her best not to fidget under his gaze.

“I have an assignment,” Derek announced, pulling on his shoes and taking a seat and setting his bag on the floor beside him.

“Where to?” Liam asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But I can bet it isn’t to Hawaii.”

Liam nodded, probably not. “Don’t worry, I can take Amelia to her appointments while you’re away.”

She flushed and Derek only smiled and nodded, “I appreciate it.”

He looked at Amy, “Calm down, he’s not going to bite.”

“Unless you want him to,” Kaila said. “But then only as hard as you want him to.”

Liam gave Kaila a pointed look as Amy gaped and did her best not to squirm or think about the statement too much. Derek grinned, ruffling Amy’s hair, hugging his uncle.

“You two play nice,” he said. “Safe sex is great sex.”

Amy’s face turned full red then, her jaw dropped and Liam threw his head back to laugh. Derek smirked, heading out and down the stairs to his car and then to the embassy. Stiles was on the steps, bandages still around his hands, but he had regained some of his former color.

“They let you out?”

Stiles shrugged, “Said I was healing quickly, only need my brace for a few days at this rate.”

Derek looked at his hands and unwrapped the bandages. The wound had closed for the most part and was still healing it seemed, only throbbing an angry red.

“Looks a lot better.”

He nodded, “Can’t stick my fingers through my palms anymore. Thank you.”

Derek shook his head even as his wolf preened and rewrapped the hand quickly before walking in to where they would be given their assignment. Stiles had a go bag on his back, probably filled with technology and the like. 

“It’ll be our first out of state-er, won’t it?” Stiles said.

Derek nodded. Being a handler meant being itinerate, for the most part Beacon Hills agents, while having their own fair share of crazy to deal with, weren’t usually kept within the territory. Instead, they were sent out on special missions. It was odd that they’d waited this long before sending them out of the state. Why the Alliance thought that sending Stiles and Derek to Texas, of all places, a place that was not only parochial but down-right hick-country was beyond them. But when they got the order, and Layla’s more than smug smirk appeared, they knew. This was punishment. This was a test from the lycan elders and the alliance. When they exited the hall to see Scott and Kira, they told them that they were going to drive the jeep to Texas and they both stared in shock.

“Texas?”

Derek nodded and watched Scott’s jaw shake before he smiled and lay a hand on Scott’s shoulder.

“We’ll be back, but we’ll need you guys here for back up. “

Scott nodded, “We’ll be here… just… come back safe.”

Stiles grinned, “I’ve already started researching.”

Scott let out a breath, “Then I have no worries at all.”

From what Stiles knew of Texas in general, courtesy of his very long research crusade on Texas, besides the facts that their flower was still bluebonnet (even though they’d been practically extinct for centuries), some people still hung the confederate flag, and they had a very deep dislike for the supernatural, he couldn’t find much.  Texas was the only territory that existed outside of the Alliance, the last resistance after the wars had ended and the humans made a truce with the supernatural. Supernaturals were allowed to pass through Texas only if given the go ahead from the government. Lycans were allowed only in very special circumstances and if they came they were not allowed in churches, police stations, government buildings, or schools because of their “base nature”. He could only imagine the number of lycan priests, police officers, government workers, and teachers they’d missed out on for that rule alone.

It was a catholic notion that lycans were boorish, belligerent, and uncivilized creatures who would much rather run through the woods than converse with polite society, but it wasn’t true. If anything, Stiles had met more boorish humans that any supernatural creature. Those that were boorish happened to not only just be shifters, but were also function on a specific brand of arrogance. Trying to explain that to these asshats would have been a waste of time. Texans were notoriously parochial...about everything, especially lycans. It pissed him off to think that they were being sent to Texas as punishment for something Derek couldn’t even control. But it was obvious that there was more to the odd assault cases that got this particular case landed on their desk. Yet, a part of him knew that Derek knew exactly why it was Texas instead of anywhere else… The thought made him sick.

He couldn’t exactly figure out what made it so invidious that they were being sent instead of any other team. If they suspected spirits at work, they would have been better off sending a human and druid normal team. It wouldn’t make sense to send a handler team. For one, spirits generally had the same sort of characteristics: ghostly, pale, sort of haunting in their immateriality. But this was different, and he knew that it was different before he’d even encountered it.  Before the police descended… When they’d crossed the border of Texas, showing their paperwork, Derek had grown stiff in the passenger seat.

The  accretion of spirits was almost stifling; he could feel them watching them, following them as they drove into town. Derek growled. The taste of it was  acerbic , sanguine and metallic like freshly spilled blood even though the last lycan death in the territory had to have been centuries ago. The town they’ve been sent to is called Jefferson, it’s tiny, and holds that old sense of being removed from the modern world. They drove to the police station only to be met with a wall of police officers waiting for them, led by the sheriff.

_ Were they planning for a shoot out?  _ Stiles couldn’t help but wonder. He looked at Derek who looked at him behind his aviators, their matching aviators courtesy of Kira, and then back to the group of men. What a welcome committee. 

Sheriff Lockman was the kind of sheriff you’d expect to see in an old country movie: toting one gun, a shiny gold badge, and the attitude that said “get the fuck out of my town.” He hated big government and probably hated Stiles more because he locked like he should be in high school than toting the gun in his holster around or his alliance badge. Stiles gets out of the jeep first, stepping on to the dry soil and walks forward as Derek gets out of the car and follows, walking towards them. The tree that’s black and withered catches his eye first, then the smell of dry dust and alcohol. They were experiencing a drought and, maybe worse, they were all drunk off their asses.

“What the hell is the Alliance thinking sending a kid here?”

Stiles decided, maybe with his better judgment, to stay silent and let Derek do the talking if only because it could have gotten really, really, really uncomfortable if he decided to whip out his gun and well… demolish the sheriff. That wasn’t what they were there for. It was a test and Stiles only knew half of it. 

“We’re here because it seems your town has a supernatural problem,” Derek said.

The Sheriff snorted, “And you two are supposed to help, how? Who the hell called you two in?”

“The Governor of Texas,” Stiles said pulling out a page. “The things happening here aren’t isolated cases. We’re here in Jefferson, because this is where it started.”

The man sucked on his teeth and told them to head towards the town hall where they would be holding the meeting with the entire town. They were relegated to the back, a place where they weren’t supposed to hear, understand or see anything. However, being that Derek had supervision and Stiles could tap into that supervision  when need be, sitting at the very back of the very large community center where they held town meetings wasn’t that big of a deal. Unfortunately, it was less than edifying. Magic hadn’t been taught in Texas since the last supernatural moved out and thus magical forensics had not been either. The moments that Stiles would have paused to examine the evidence, were thrown aside as irrelevant as people took turns suggesting that a coyote or some feral thing had been terrorizing their small town. They had no idea what they were dealing with. No idea where it came from, no idea what it wanted—no idea at all. And they didn’t seem to be interested in listening either.

Within a few days, it became clear that the Texas law enforcement, wasn’t exactly up to par across the state, and not up to doing anything for the tiny town of Jefferson.  Instead, they lounged, cursed the supernatural and shot Derek and Stiles dirty looks. When Stiles asked to see the case file, so they could actually do their own brand of forensic analysis, something that the police station was ill-equipped to handle, the Lieutenant promptly said “Fuck you” and turned around. That had been after the town hall meeting.

“Not exactly the greatest start,” Stiles said, later as they leaned on his jeep the next day, chewing bubble gum behind dark aviators, and regarded the police station.

Derek shrugged, blowing a small bubble and popping in between his teeth, “It’s Texas.”

“Well,” Stiles said getting off the jeep. “Time for Plan B!”

Derek had been waiting outside, listening to the conversation as the law of Jefferson. The police officers didn’t know that he was a lycan, but that didn’t mean he didn’t obey the laws as necessary. They’d played nice, he’d stayed calm and apparently that was getting them nowhere. They climbed into the jeep that had, by some miracle, made it the entire drive to Texas without problem to strategize.

Derek, knowing a little bit more about the politics of anti-alliance police culture, suggested that they sneak in. And Stiles thought for sure he was insane.

“You want us to sneak into a Texas police station?”

“Not us,” he said. “You.”

“Me? Why Me?”

“Because you’re human…. And they hate you a little less.”

Stiles didn’t believe that especially since one of the lieutenants, while eyeing his backside, threatened to shoot his head off. Even if Stiles was more than assured that the lieutenant would never be able to aim his gun, or his dick, in a way that could cause harm because the man was , for all intents and purposes, perpetually drunk, he didn’t want to chance it.

“And how exactly do you plan to  _ sneak  _ me into the police station? It’s set up like a police station, you know with security and all of that, and trust me police stations are pretty standard across the board. That’s why they’re called  _ stations. _ ”

Derek gave him a flat look, “I really hate you… sometimes.”

“I know,” he replied. “It keeps me awake at night.”

Derek snorted, somehow doubting that, and he suggested that Derek would be the distraction, giving Stiles more than enough time to sneak in, find the case file and get all the information they needed.

“What’s your plan?”

Derek’s head tilts, his eyes up towards the ceiling and Stiles just knows he’s being a smart ass as he says it with a little jostle of his head. Stiles can only stare at him and wonder how he got paired with someone so bind.

“To… distract her.”

“Oh, yeah? How? By punching her in the face?”

“By talking to her.”

“All right, give me a sample.” Stiles said with his best incredulous look. Mr. Leather Sunshine is going to “distract” a lieutenant? “What are you going to open with?”

Derek blinked and remained silent.

“Dead silence… That should work beautifully. Any other ideas?”

“Thinking about punching you in the face…”

Stiles wonders if Derek will ever find a better comeback than violence, but because Stiles was just that tired of holding in all the things he really wanted to say about the station and maybe because he was a little more wary about if they came back a failure--he agreed and Derek went in.

_ Please Mom… Please give him some sort of social grace beyond punching people in the face. Please… Please... _

They were lucky, maybe his prayers actually reached  _ someone…  _ or maybe his mother was in good with God and fist bumped him every once in a while as she watched over her son. Maybe Talia and Claudia knew exactly what could happen and pleaded for God to do  _ something.  _ The possibilities were endless and unknowable. The lieutenant was relatively new, hadn’t been to any of the proceedings, and was basically watching the desk. She was probably bored as most cops in that position are at this time of night. Dark skin, pretty face and looking as she’d gone into anything else that wasn’t police work that meant sitting at a police desk, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere Texas. 

Derek strolled in, Stiles a few paces behind him, and immediately her expression changed. Stiles wanted to kick him even as he slid along the edges of the room to sneak towards the door that separated the front of the station from the back. He looked back occasionally to assure that Derek was talking to the woman who was more than interested in talking to him.

_ Fucker, wish I could do that to women. _

Derek, mainly going with the flow and his instincts, smiled-- a real one and Stiles really wanted to kick her in the face once this was all over and his knees stopped shaking. It was nothing like his half-managed grins or when he was being cheeky or smug. A smile that softened the intense look of him and made him look like a college student, maybe a frat boy or at least a really nice, really handsome guy.

_ All that fucking work I do and I can’t get half a little grin and this random woman gets a smile-- _

He digressed, he was a little angry, but it didn’t matter and he went back to picking the lock. There were no enchantments, no seals, no real security on door beyond a simple key and he’d learned to pick locks in middle school. It was damn disgraceful, but he wasn’t sure why he was going to put that much faith in this backward ass town. 

“Hi,” she greeted.

“Hello,” he said, pulling that smile and unsure voice that Stiles was sure worked wonders for any customer service woman. “I have a question…”

It was almost shy, cute, completely opposite of Derek’s personality when it came to Stiles. 

Somehow Stiles knew that this may or may not have gone well, or maybe it would go well. who knows? But as Derek continued to feed her a few half-truths about the reason he was there, not lying, but skating around the fact that he was an Alliance agent, Stiles realized he was chatting her up and good at it. When the lock was opened, he snuck into the bullpen, pass the desks and towards the main file cabinets. It was a dark room, which smelled faintly of beer and dust as if no one cleaned up and everyone drank on the job. It made his heart sink to think that  _ yes _ they really only had paper records and computers so old that it was miracle they could do anything any longer. And yes, there wasn’t a magical thing in sight.

_ What a bunch of fucking idiots… _

For one, the lock on the cabinet was easy to pick. Two, it was unlocked! He couldn’t help but think that if this was Beacon Hills, his Dad would have everyone’s badges...But it wasn’t and so he really had to hurry up. Not knowing if they had an magic censors anywhere or if it even mattered, and doubting that they did, he pulled out his phone and snapped pictures as quickly as he could. Maybe fifty clicks later, Stiles was out, slipping back through the door and Derek was wrapping up his conversation.

“Well...thanks for all your help,” he said giving her a shy smile. “You should really think about leaving Texas. I think you’d be a good fit for the Alliance.”

She flushed and smiled back, that low sultry voice as she leaned over the desk, “Anytime dear… anytime.”

Stiles almost puked,  _ gross. _

So when Derek got back into the car, looking extremely proud of himself, Stiles only looked at him. 

“You do know that she would probably kill you if she knew what you were?”

Derek shrugged, “She’d have to try… and she’d actually probably jump me instead.”

Stiles didn’t like the fact that he seemed so sure of himself, but digressed, pulled up his tablet, connected his phone and uploaded the images to the database so Scott and Kira could see on their computers. Access to the Alliance database directly was difficult in Texas, but impossible in the tiny town. 

“What the fuck is that?” Scott asked.

“That,” Stiles said as Scott and Kira came up on the video feed, “Is the first victim. No one’s been killed yet, but the attacks are getting more aggravated. No one knows why, no one seems to care to know why, or they’re keeping it all really, really hush hush. They’re all focused around this town and who knows why?”

“We’ll run it through and see what we got,” Scott promised. “Be careful.”

“Thanks Scott, we will.”

With that done the only thing left to do was to, well… hope. Hope that whatever had been done could be undone and they’d get the hell out of Texas without incident. Derek stiffened as the sound of low level sirens filled the air.

But no, of course not, that would be too damn _ easy _ and the Alliance, since finding out about Derek, has done everything except make their lives easy. 

So before they’d even made it back to their shitty motel, they see the police car waiting for them. It's the sheriff of assholes and his asshat gang. 

Derek and Stiles get out of the car to confront the men only to receive the first of what could have been several shots. The bullet flies past Derek’s head almost too close for comfort and there’s the sharp tang of wolfsbane in the air. 

“You brought a fucking  _ lycan  _ into our town?”

_ Ah, shit... _ It seemed that rather than keeping their identities a secret, the Alliance had potentially screwed them over once more and told them exactly who they were or, by some magic means they’d figured out Derek wasn’t exactly human. Stiles being Stiles asked.

“What do you mean?”

Derek is tense beside him though standing as relaxed as he always looked. 

“Our lieutenant told us you were a wolf.”

Stiles somehow didn’t think that that wolf was the same kind of wolf that Derek actually was but apparently in this town didn’t make a difference. Stiles resigned to hate the female lieutenant from earlier even more. 

Derek wondered what exactly the hell was going on as the woman manning the desk wouldn’t have said anything about him being a lycan and had no way of knowing. She was human, not just any sort of maybe could be human like Stiles, but human. Grade A human, he could smell it, though there was something like wolfsbane at the edge of her scent. Not to mention there hadn’t been a supernatural within 20 miles since they entered Texas, let alone in this tiny run down town. There was no way she would have known. Though she knew that he was an alliance agent. The idea of wolfsbane bothered him though. If she wasn’t…

_ Holy fuck. _

“Lieutenant?”

There was a bark and a growl in Derek’s direction. Derek’s eyes drifted towards the dog, “Lieutenant Lacy here has a good nose for  _ wolves. _ Used to hunt them all the time, she picked up your scent at the station.”

“You two came into town, three days ago.”

“Yes…?”

“When the Alliance told us a lycan would be coming through…”

_ Oh...shit… _ was the first reaction, but then at the back of his mind he began to turn the words over. A lycan, no specifics, if they knew before they’d even gotten to the tiny town from the border patrol, then why wait till now to bring out the bullets. 

There was something else going on. Derek’s wolf paced, roiling ready to run, ready to fight, ready to do anything other than stand there and look at his enemies.

“We asked for your paperwork and guess what they said?”

“We’re two outstanding members of the Alliance force?”

“A handler who looks younger than my son,” Stiles bristled at that. He definitely looked older than that twink of a fifteen year old who thought he could swing a gun around like an ass and get girls to do as he wanted. “And his pet… They didn’t specify what kind of beast you were though… but now we know.”

Derek growled then and Stiles wanted to kick him.  _ Son of a bitch _ , he could have diffused the situation if the sheriff just hadn’t said the p-word and Derek hadn’t gone all…  _ Derek:  _ red eyes, claws and  _ anger  _ which had only grown since coming into his alpha powers. The entire troop lifted their guns, threatening to shoot at will. Stiles knew that Derek was more than fast enough to dodge a couple rifle shots and slaughter them all with ease… including the annoying dog that was still barking at them. 

In an attempt to  abate what was quickly turning into a def-con three, total lockdown nightmare, Stiles lifted his hand and stepped in front of Derek.

A human defending a wolf? He was at best insane .

“Alright, alright, alright,” He said, lifting his hands towards both parties, staying in between them. “No maiming. We are here to help.” 

Hopefully, Derek was calming down and his baby face was working on the sheriff and his minions. 

“Finally got a copy of those case files,” Stiles started. 

“That’s stealing police property.”

“My dad’s a sheriff… and your cabinets were unlocked,” Stiles said with a shrug, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I mean, who did you expect to keep out of there? A kid in a wheelchair? Besides, I didn’t steal anything. Lawfully, the case is ours and I only made copies. You all… have a serious magical problem on your hands and, if you don’t let us fix it, it’s going to get worse.”

The Sheriff cocked his handgun and aimed at Stiles’s chest, “Trespassing, breaking into a police station, stealing case files, and let’s just tack on belligerence and resisting arrest.”

_ Oh shit,  _ Stiles thought.

“We’re cuffing you.”

Stiles let out a breath, “Well, you—you could do that… _or..._ or you could let us solve the case.”

“Solve the case? What the hell do you know kid?”

Apparently, this was a time to flex his research muscles as soon as he was sure that Derek was calming down.

_ Are you alright?  _ He asked.

His wolf huffed, but he could feel the anger ebbing and receding… for now and that was all Stiles needed. 

“We know a lot, a lot more than you about what’s happening across this state.” Stiles said.  “We aren’t here to cause trouble. We’re here to help.”

“You’re here to kill us,” one of them said, stepping forward and cocking his gun, he fired another shot past Derek’s shoulder. 

He shook his head, “We aren’t here for that.”

“And how can you be so sure he’s not? He’s just an animal.”

They fired another shot and Derek stepped aside, dodging it easy, but the shots were agitating him. They were poor shots, he tried to reason with his wolf, but they still  _ intended  _ harm and he did anything but intend to do anything. He did or didn’t do it. Occasionally he planned, but that was the extent of his  _ intent. _

“He’s not,” Stiles said lifting his gun. “He’s a man and if you think that you’re going to try and put him down like one. I’m going to have to file a use of force report on this entire town.”

The sheriff glared at Derek who remained quiet. After realizing that Derek wasn’t going to get into a dick waving contest with him, and Stiles was not bullshitting, he sucked on his teeth. He’d known the eyes of men, known what men looked like when they were lying, could see the true depths they were willing to fall and the boundaries they were willing to cross. Stiles had seen darkness despite his innocuous appearance and there was no boundary that he wouldn’t cross. He was prepared and maybe able, to kill all of them--without batting an eyelash. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. The kid was down right scary in his own right. No child should look like that. It was just another reason that Texas would never join the Alliance: they destroyed kids.

“Now, do you want to talk and listen like civilized people or are we going to have an old fashioned shoot out?”

“...guns down, boys.”

They lowered their guns slowly and slowly, Stiles returned his to his holster and smiled.

“Much better.”

“What the hell is it that you think you know about this town? Better than us?”

“As I was going to explain,” He cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and told them the truth, “Texas has the greatest concentration of lycan deaths in the entire United States. The densest per square foot and as it is the largest state, second only to Alaska and that is a huge problem. Blood soaks the ground and lycans, when not laid to rest properly, become lycan spirits and enough of them, under the right circumstances means trouble. They are  _ everywhere _ , they probably outnumber the population of Texas and some other state combined. It would take… a freaking shaman months to dispel the spirits that are grounded to one tiny town like here alone, if they were all separate.”

“What are you talking about, boy?”

“If there’s enough spirits, enough angst, enough  _ packness _ , and enough magic spirits can join together and become a sort of collective unconscious,” Stiles said and pointed towards the sky where the moon was just shy of full and would be in three days time, “There’s a solar eclipse coming up and a full moon which means more than enough magic to bind spirits together.  _ That’s what you’re dealing with. _ ”

Derek swallowed looking at Stiles in shock, he hadn’t thought of that. He’d known that it was definitely lycan, but the idea of lycan spirits forming a pack out of rage and revenge. It was not something that could commonly happen… unless…

_ The Vendetta of the Dead,  _ the words came to his consciousness from Stiles and he felt his blood run cold. Whole countries had been destroyed, wiped out by the power of shifter spirits that had been wronged and not put to rest properly. The drought that Texas had been suffering from all across the state, the black tree… the infant mortality rates climbing… There was a full on spiritual upheaval about to happen. Waiting, chomping at the bit of the solar eclipse, ready to spill chaos and revenge into this plane. 

_ Oh shit... _

“More importantly, this collective unconscious is getting stronger because when spirits get together draw more spirits together, especially pack-oriented spirits like lycans. They form a pack beyond this life to make up for the pack they were taken from in life. And if there are enough of them, they get more solid, more powerful and material enough to harm people on this plane. I won’t even add the fact that  _ all  _ shifters look for each other in the afterlife.”

“What’s this magic mumbo jumbo, you’re talking about?” One of the stooges asked. “Ain’t no spirits in Jefferson.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, “The people that have died are still here and very pissed off and they will continue to be pissed off until they are laid to rest, or at least addressed…. Or something to that effect.”

They swallowed and he was sure they were pondering the concept of a million Derek's running around impervious to wolfsbane bullets but just as deadly… maybe even deadlier.

“You don’t have anyone supernatural to do it and you don’t have the skills to do it either. We do.”

“And you expect us to trust you?”

“What reason would we have to lie about this?”

“You’re a lycan.”

“I’m not a lycan! He’s a lycan.”

“What the fuck are you? A fairy?”

“Cute,” he said. “ Prosaic even--No. I’m human.”

“Well we’re human, what the fuck can you do that we can’t?”

“I’m human  _ with training.  _ If they’re just lycan spirits,  _ Derek _ would be the best person to help arrange some reparations.”

“You go,” the man said, waving his gun. “He stays. Don’t trust a fucking lycan.”

“It’s fine,” Derek said, before Stiles could even start to protest. “I’ll stay.”

Stiles can’t help but think this is a really bad idea and something that Alliance planned for since they sent them on this fucked up mission. Since when did the Alliance give  _ Texas _ , territories outside the Alliance any aid against the supernatural? He doubted that it was ploy to try and bring them into the fold. From the look on Derek’s face, he knew that there was something more, but as they cuffed him and pushed him towards the sheriff’s car, Stiles felt his stomach sink. There was a look of resignation, a look of despair and maybe a glimmer of terror. The kind you get when you stare into a heart of darkness and know you have to go in. Stiles walks to where Derek can see him.

“You’ve got three days to fix this,” the sheriff said. “ _ Fairy. _ ”

Stiles’s jaw dropped as another dumped a larger stack of files in his hands and a box.

“Three days?” Stiles asked. “What happens after three days?”

“We execute the lycan,” he said.

Stiles’s jaw dropped and he knew Derek heard the thudding of his heart and the words the man said.

“Are you crazy? You have a serious case of angry spirits and you want to add a  _ fresh one  _ to the mix? A fresh  _ Hale _ ? Trust me buddy, Derek is anything but sunshine and rainbows. Are you crazy?”

“Lycans die by law if they’re here for more than a few weeks, especially when they’ve committed a crime.”

Stiles dropped the box, “What the fuck are you talking about? What  _ crime? _ ”

“He entered a police station.”

“ _ We’re alliance agents! _ We have to enter police stations! We have jurisdiction!”

“Those are the rules.” He walked away, “Three days.”

Stiles looked at Derek and felt his jaw tremble. His eyes were steady looking at Stiles as the gang got into the cars and Stiles blinked back the tears.

“ _ I’ll do it in two. _ ”

Derek only felt his lips tilt a little.  _ Two days? _ Stiles was good, but he wasn’t that good. The Alliance planned this well, so when the Sheriff and his stooge drove past the stations towards the woods, and he realized that the cuffs were wolfsbane and mountain ash, he wasn’t surprised. They drove into a cave not too far from the station and into a garage, before men came to the car and grabbed him, spraying him in the face with a wolfsbane aerosol. He choked, it burned his throat as he stumbled and they dragged him down the hall. Blackened, poisoned blood dribbled as it burned through his mouth and he gasped for breath, glad that he didn’t inhale. 

They dragged him up towards a woman standing in sky high red heels and smelled like lycan blood. His wolf growled on a reflex as he looked up at her. 

“A new toy, how fun,” she said. “We’ll be sure to play with you sedulously.”

He spat out a glob of black ooze on to her shoes and grinned, “If you kill me, you’ll have a whole more than a very angry handler to deal with. Trust me, he's anything but sunshine and rainbows.”

“I’m sure,” she said curtly and nodded in the direction of the white door. 

They threw him in and the floor came up to meet him like a cold wet slap in the face and he sputtered drawing back at the burn. A light layer of wolfsbane formula coated the floor, just enough to make him weak. They’d taken his shoes at some point and the liquid seeped into his clothing, inundating his senses into his skin and made him dizzy with the smell of wolfsbane.

_ Shit… _

_ *** _

Stiles dragged the box to the crappy motel room they’d been staying in. He hadn’t realized that it was so heavy when it was given to him, because Derek had been there and his wolf had the proclivity towards lending strength whenever they were near. Without him, and the fact that they were probably inflicting all manners of harm upon him, they’re promise to give him three days was one backed by a checkered past with lycans. 

He didn’t have a moment to lose, so he took down the expansive picture of the fifth lycan war in which humans won, though they didn’t, off the wall and began building his crime board from the box. He opened his laptop and projected a map of the city and opened his table to reach Scott. He groaned, rubbing his eyes.

“ _ Agent McCall… please tell me it’s important--” _

“They’ve taken Derek,” Stiles said and that was more than enough to get Scott wide awake and out of bed. He heard Kira getting up and rushing to the car as Stiles explained everything while building his wall. 

From the history of the town, the tunnels beneath it and anything else he could find. Scott and Kira pulled up maps and accessed the long history of Texas and lycan, which was less than pretty. Apparently, a lycan priest, a woman who lead the religious following of Ravi, had been murdered and had started the third of the Lycan wars. 

“Wait,” Stiles said. “Go back to that picture.”

Scott flipped back to the image of a tree full of flowers. Stiles recognized it as the barren, black tree that occupied the front of the police station. 

“Where was she killed?”

“Apparently, she was lynched, hung from the tree and shot to death with wolfsbane bullets… the argents had been contracted for the kill.”

_ Great, _ meaning that Derek would be even more pissed off of a spirit if they killed him. Just what he needed. 

“That tree is black now,” Stiles said. “Gnarly, no flowers. Find me everything you can on the Cult of Ravi. Call Max, I want tenants about the afterlife, burial, everything. Call a Hale if you have to and get some answers.”

Scott nodded as Kira came to the screen and shared everything she could find on the cult of Ravi. It was always less organized than a church, more arcane than anyone admitted and based on the spiritual nature of the wolf and how it affected life on two legs. Where their spirit animals came from… where they went after they were dead.

“It isn’t just a lycan thing,  _ Ravi _ is a figure for shifters on the whole.”

_ Fuck,  _ Stiles thought, that would only make this more difficult.

“Are you alright?” Scott asked.

“I’m not exactly beatific,” he said. “My bosses have fleeced us, Derek’s life is in my hands, and I have no adderall to help. My brain is  _ wrecked. _ ”

Scott snorted, “You’re just fine if you’re still using the big words.”

The information available via the Lycan Elders about Ravi was indigent to say the least. They were tight lipped, even to Scott who was in fact a lycan. Max had little knowledge about himself only to say that being laid to rest properly could keep a wronged spirit from turning dark.

“It is not the fact that we were killed like animals, but that we were not remembered as men.”

Stiles felt sick, Texas was known very well for its ditches and whole landfills of dead shifters. Their Salemic treatment of any supernatural, the panic and the fear of it all. He was up researching every aspect of the case to find nothing. Beyond the priest of Ravi being killed here there was no sense of why here. Why Jefferson and more importantly where in Jefferson? 

It was seven in the morning when a knock sounded on the door and he was on his third cup of coffee. He went to the door to answer it and saw the lieutenant from before in shades, jeans, a hoodie, looking as non-descript as possible. She pushed her way inside without another moment’s notice and closed the door behind her, closing the blinds. 

“What do you want? Here to threaten me?” Stiles asked.

“Is it safe?” She asked. 

“Magic wards everywhere, no one in town could hear what’s being said right now.”

She took down her hood and looked at him and Stiles’s jaw dropped, getting a better look at her as she rolled up her sleeve to show him a celtic knot on the inside of her elbow. Holy fuck, she was a shifter...A  _ lycan. _

“How?”

She shook her head, taking a puff of the inhaler in her hand, the celtic knot sunk back into the hues of her skin, “I don’t have much time. I have to report, I wanted to bring you these.”

She pulled a large folder of pages from inside her hoodie, shoving them into his hands along with a necklace. Stiles’s eyes widened, they were old, extremely old, but he recognized police and government files.

“These are all the records regarding the death of Kenya Tyson and all the others.”

_ Kenya Tyson... _ Lieutenant Tyson and his jaw dropped.

“How?”

“Wolfsbane inhaler and scent suppressants,” she said. “No one knows and ever since I found out, I’ve been trying to get out. Planning to get out and then all of this happened and I wasn’t able to leave.”

“Weren’t able?” Stiles asked a little confused.

“They, my ancestors… I can’t leave them here alone and because I’ve been on the serum for so long… I cannot honor them on my own...I am without a pack.”

But not a blue-eyed omega, just an omega who had not found a pack quit yet. Stiles couldn’t see Derek not adopting her rather easily into the Hale Pack given his penchant for trying to give people stability. 

Stiles nodded, “You could come with us, when we leave.”

“Assuming I survive… and you and Derek get out alive.”

He frowned, “What?”

“They plan to kill you both, say it was an accident. Say the spirits killed you. Derek has been taken to the Institute and they’ll dissect him.”

“What for?”

“Because the Alliance has been trying to create shifters for generations and failed…. Derek is an alpha isn’t he?”

Stiles nodded and his blood ran cold. It was imponderable that the Alliance had sent them there specifically because Derek was an unplanned Alpha… a perfect specimen to figure out how a beta became alpha could provide insight into how a human could be turned into a lycan. Someone had been reading way too much werewolf lore about being able to pass the curse and had developed a gross obsession with the higher state of physicality that lycans possessed. Shifters weren't werewolves, werecreatures of any kind, or cursed. From the very first lycan, they were born with a connection to the other side that manifested as an animal spirit… Something that was as integral to them as their DNA. To even think to try and tamper with that could be opening an entirely new kind of problem that no one in the world needed at the moment. 

“I have to go,” she said, taking another drag of her inhaler, a deeper one and biting back the taste of it. “I’ll come back and answer any questions you have. Just… hurry, please?”

Stiles nodded and made a show of pushing her out of the motel room, leveling his gun at her until she was scrambling into her car and driving off before slamming the door. She’d been followed no doubt. Probably been told the plan and sent to tell him to get the hell out, to give up… not bad. She was definitely agent material. 

When she left, he opened the files, began to feed them through the portable scanner and traced the places around Jefferson with significant deaths. 

The tree outside the police station… the woods, the town square… and then there was a building, harmless, almost innocuous in its appearance that sat on the far side of town. A hospital… a  _ lycan _ hospital. The records said that there had been a miraculous number of people to recover after going to that hospital.. it’s reputation had spread so wide that people all over came for surgeries: blood, organs, limbs…

“Oh my god…” Stiles whispered in horror.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“An organ harvesting ring… in a hospital… transplanting lycan organs into human patients…”

“What?”

“While they’re still alive!” Stiles said and did a quick calculation oddly sangfroid in nature. 

Depending on the organ, a lycan could be kept alive more than long enough to give blood, plasma and anything else they could reap from a still warmed body... or a dead one. Lycan bodies, after death, still run hot, warm enough to survive. But if they theorized that people that were given these transplants may become lycans, they would have studied them and the lycan spirit would have been...split between the donors...a loss of self and a loss of pack all at once and--

“It’s the old hospital…” he said and went to the current map to find it. “Scott, Kira, I’m leaving.”

“What? You figured it out?”

Stiles nodded, checking his gun and taking a deep breath, before looking into the screen. 

“If I’m not back in three days, call the Lycan Elders and let them know what's happening. Get another team, no lycan preferably, out here and get Derek out of here. They have no idea what they are tampering with and if they kill him literal hell will break loose. I'm still scanning things into the database.”

Scott was about to say something but didn’t get the chance as Stiles was already heading out of the room. He took a deep breath while getting into his jeep and drove towards the other side of town and prayed that he was right and would have enough time to save Derek. 

***

The test results were equivocal to say the least. Derek was a beta by blood, yet all the tests screamed ‘alpha’ in big bold letters… even louder than Derek when they’d cut into him to collect fresh blood samples and injected him with small batches of various chemical cocktails to get the truth from his biology. 

The alpha red of his eyes, glaring through the electro shock, the rush of chemicals to his brain while he was interrogated, hardly fidgeting when the current surged. Rigid when the chemicals finally hit his brain and came out his nose in hot, black streams, a reaction that meant his body was forcing the chemical out faster than they could react with his body chemistry.

He was a rare thing, a rare creature of the supernatural.

“Boys,” she announced, ebullient and galvanized by the sight of Derek’s seething form and stern eyes. She felt her staff trembling with a sick excitement. They got off on this sort of thing, the thrill of the study. The thrill of breaking people, especially lycans, the monsters that had ripped her family apart.

The Alliance had sent them here to her facility to test him, to find the truth and while they could not legally test him, to figure out the truth, the Institute could. The Lycan Elders held no power and their rules, their pacifist rules when dealing with animals didn’t apply here. She was a goddess of science given free reign over her test subjects. Many had died there, many more would, but she was looking forward to taking this one a part. An alpha made, not born at birth or through blood, but  _ made  _ of necessity. The secrets he could hold...

“Until he shifts, you are not to let up on the testing.”

Derek heard her words through the glass and growled.

“We’re sure your little friend won’t be back for you, probably already got a new pet.”

Derek slammed his eyes shut against the current and the need to shift, to escape the pain and scream. He searched for the tether that would lead him towards Stiles. His mind was wracked with a sense of terror, fear…

_ Derek… top Derek… _

His wolf seemed eased at that and he knew for sure that Stiles was aware of him as he felt the pull of Stiles’s use of the tether moments later, drawing on his strength. 

_ Ziu top Stiles, _ he thought, regardless of the corollary.  _ Go to Stiles.  _ He heard the roar of his wolf and the speed with which it reached out to empower Stiles on his charge. He shouldn’t have been there… he shouldn’t have been alone. Derek should have been with him, but here he was strung up underneath this mad woman’s control. Her antic smile through the glass made his wolf growl and wish to tear out her throat. Derek just wanted to kill her as another surge came through him and he bit his lip.

“This is going to be a long night for you, wolf boy.”

***

The building was boarded up, crosses around the perimeter, he knew someone had figured out that there was something off about the place. Too bad the  _ crosses _ didn’t work on shifter spirits… or on anything for that matter. Here at the hospital, they were just decorations, things for spirits to hang on to and anchor themselves to if they chose because the strength of belief they were imbued with a pure symbols. Stiles pulled the first board off the doorway and felt the roar, saw the eyes glaring at him through the darkness. They felt him there as he climbed in and pulled his gun from the holster. 

_ Generally no good… _ but it could have been--

Something crashed to his left and he breathed, aiming his gun at the noise. The upper floors were filled with wandering spirits, but the overwhelming darkness and rage was coming from below. He had to get to the basement...Leave it to fucked-up tiny, town Jefferson to ignore the general souther rule of no basements. 

The basement in question was actually a part of a cave system beneath the hospital. He tread lightly until he found the stairs and turned on the flashlight, crossing his wrists and creeping through the darkness. Slash marks up and down the stairwell that went from hospital regulated work to solid stone as the blood and anger grew thicker in the air, getting thicker with each step. He felt the chill up his back when he reached the ground floor, he was close.

A roar sounded as a figure began running towards him. Stiles rushed forward, feeling the threads of Derek’s consciousness peering into his own as he fired his gun and spun into a high kick, feeling Derek’s direction. 

_ Left, right, to your left--fire! Run! _

His feet moved before he was aware of it, over the first’s head that came down on him earning a full-bodied punch to the face as Stiles continued down the stone corridor towards the center of the den. His fist hit solid flesh and bone, but the figure crashed into mist against the wall. They were becoming more solid, that wasn’t good. When he entered the hall, a wave of antipathy, of rage and fury rushed out at him, swirling around him, cutting him and throwing him across the cave and into the wall.

He heard something crack, felt it as a jagged knife through his back. It roared and tossed him again, the wind howling in his ears. It held him by the throat and lifted him slowly up from the ground, his gun in his hand and he felt presences around him, hovering assembling to adjudicate him: kill him or destroy him? The voices howled and deep whisper in his chest.

_ A’tsuli-va… _

They knew his mother had been a spark...He frowned struggling, the voices sounded like a chorus of voices. Who were they? How did they know? Only people that could see into his spirit would know, meaning that there were probably a lot more than just lycan spirits tangled up in this incarnation of vengeance. It was worse than he thought. 

_ Muδ oδr’a δ’ ar`paδo ar`loδo luca-s… _

Stiles felt his head going light, swirling and Derek’s presence losing grip and he sucked in a breath and cried out as it bent his arm slowly. How could he run if they were holding him by the throat and slowly breaking his arm?

“ _ Gouva, _ ” he begged. “ _ Aq’ gouva efilδe! _ ”

It roared and his arm broke. He cried out as the winds swirled and his leg followed with a sickening crack. Nausea and pain hit him, rising and growing his chest as he mind began to tap out. 

_ Not yet, you’ve suffered worse. Not yet. _

“ _ δ’a gouva lo?! a’ il luca-is-falsc| il h’crief voce| il h’crief sa?!” _

He gasped through the pain that swirled and managed to shake his head, as demonic eyes rose above him, the hand around his throat, forming transparent claws to dig into his flesh. It was not the sound of a wolf, but something else, something more than just wolves. As he thought, there were tons of shifter spirits, probably humans too and everything else that had been swept up in this vengeful spirit. It was a lot worse than he thought. The spirits had been so enraged, added to, strengthened by fresh lycan blood in Jefferson and a steady stream of blood over the years from whatever insanity the Institute had been committing.

They were so very angry that he wasn’t sure if anything he said would reach them...in lycan or not, even with Derek’s backing. They didn’t even see that the tether went both ways and was completely consensual… 

There’s a dark voice in the back of his head telling him that he’s going to die. That he’s going to die alone in a basement if fucked up Texas, that the institute will kill Derek and the entire country would be flooded with the blood and fire these spirits intended to unleash on the world.

“Crief nue,” he pleaded. “Lucaon’a  gavar aqr`ruard… aq’ gouva ‘aqr`ruard h’qual...Efil _ δe! Ravi-va`astad!” _

_ Luca-is-falsc top ar`guva _ , it demanded and Stiles let the gun go, hearing it clatter below him.

The eyes narrowed on him,  _ Voce-is, A’tsuli-va. _

_ “Luca-muδ-is top ar`asatad top a -top uil. Aq-aqr`ruard lucaon-va top qual usi  top astad`luca.” _

_ A top quall luca`δ?! δ is aqr`luca! _

_ “Nue _ !” Stiles cried out as the hand tightened and he felt another leg snap and another rip of his clothing through the air. He smelled blood, heard it dripping to the cave floor below him as the world grew dark.

_ δ’a uira….δ’a uira… _

A moment passed as the world swam, “ _ Efilδe… efilδe… aqr`ruard’luca muδ δ’a is-uil.. _ ”

It was all he could hear, but slowly the world began to fade and he prayed that he wasn’t going to die if only so Derek would not be left in the hands of those faceless maniacs of the Institute. The darkness won and he closed his eyes in capitulation.

_ Derek… _

Derek came to in a cell with a celerity that surprised him as if he’d been thrown back into his body. His wounds had already healed and he’d been drenched in cold water. One of the women that worked there was poking him with something, sedating him and waking him from whatever trance he’d entered into. His wolf was restive anyway, tugging at the tether to feel something, but there was nothing but darkness… At least, if there was still something and it had not completely vanished, Stiles was still alive.

But for a mind like Stiles’s to be reduced to complete darkness, he must be in enough pain to be very close to death.

*

Maybe by his own ingenuity, or his own stupidity, he woke up with a ghostly figure sitting beside him, legs crossed and patient. The eyes of Ravi looking at him and he swallowed. Lycaon was nothing compared to this… or maybe… this was the spirit of lycaon himself acting as an anchor for all the vengeful spirits in the state… But wouldn’t that have meant that lycan would be more greek? And it definitely wasn’t, and since he was alive--

“You voice-making is loud even as you make no voice, Spark-child.”

Stiles swallowed, shaking as he pushed himself off the ground. Apparently, this amalgamation of spirit could inure into a tangible physical form… and have a bit of snark in it. This would go well if he could manage not to vomit from the pain. He looked to his arm see that it had not actually been broken, or… at least it wasn’t broken any longer….

“Your end-making-fire is different than the others of before.”

Stiles nodded. It would not harm spirits, though it could. It was very much in tune with his needs such that it would only fire what he believed to be the appropriate amount of force. Spark guns like his were created by spark colonies and given to families. His mother had bequeathed this one to him and told him to keep hers safe as well. When the time came he would know when to use them together. A part of him prayed that he never had to find out as he was a) sure that it would work that well since he wasn’t a spark and b) hoped shit never hit the fan that badly.

“It’s a spark gun… my mother gave it to me.”

“She gave you much more than that, Spark-child.”

Stiles swallowed, managing to sit up and sit in front of the figure, mirroring the figure and swallowing. He didn’t flinch at the latent pain in his limbs, nor attempt to correct the torn state of his clothing.

“You are a strange, spark child… so much potential, yet not enough sight for all your sprawling knowledge...so much wisdom behind your young eyes...”

Stiles swallowed chary of what else the spirit could see, “My friend--”

“The Kind One,” the spirit said. “Is in much pain, yet came to be as a help to you…”

“The Kind One?”

“ _ Der’aq _ ,” it said with a tilt of his head. “The one you call Derek.”

_ Der’aq, _ he thought. How fitting. For all his bristling exterior, Derek was inordinately kind and generous. He wondered if Scott had a lycan name as well.

“All End-Glory children have a name of glory. Though they will not know it without Pack.”

He nodded slowly, he figured as much. 

“Who are all of you?”

“We are the end-glory children who have been forced from the world in the days of the world before… those made to end in the hands of monsters here...Here our glory was never made known and thus in our shame, forgotten, we rage.”

Stiles swallowed, “How can we be of help?”

The figure froze, hesitant with a tilt of its head as if questioning and trying to understand Stiles all at once, “You… would honor us?”

Stiles nodded, “I and my friend are here to bring peace to all of you.”

“You will suffer greatly, to purify us all so that we may join our Ravi.”

Stiles swallowed, “Will it be more than a demon?”

“Much more,” it assured. “There is a great darkness in us… Hale, Marcus, Wind… all of us...seeking rest. Though our bodies were buried, we were never given rites… and thus never returned to our packs.”

Stiles took a breath, Derek’s life was depending on his ability to purify these spirits, to break an infinitely complex purgatory anchor on his own. Purifying one spirit had been tough, demonic as it was, but he had no idea how many were there… How many would come… The depth of darkness, though he had an idea...He swallowed and breathed before offering his hand in a show of peace and friendship. The spirit tilted its head to the hands Stiles offered and reached out to take his hand. 

Stiles felt it then and heard his own screaming as swords fell over him, boots, knives, wolfsbane in his veins, injected slow steady stream, roaring screaming and he curled up, his eyes burning feeling the spirits rush around and through him, before stuttering, shaking and clawing his way towards the entrance to the building, then up the stairs as blow after blow fell on him. Scalpels dug into his flesh, needles into his vein, hot beams desiccating him to wrinkled skin only to watch it fill and heal itself. His body thrown down the stairs, now relegated to desuetude and the never ending wait for death.

He felt as though his consciousness had been taken apart by each spirit and flung across the state and perhaps beyond to pass through each unmarked grave, through each grave of a recipient of a transplant, of every cross and communal grave spanning centuries if not longer. Before he felt the pieces be released to return to his body carrying with it hundred of thousands of memories and pains to rest at the core of him. 

He had no idea how long it was before he could open his eyes, but his body felt crushed, pieces of himself still dragging their way back to his body from across the state. He grunted, turning over to drag his body across the cave floor while his consciousness was still collecting itself, memories still flashing overlapping and screaming over his thoughts… all of his thoughts except one: Derek. 

He made it up the stairs and crawled across the main floor to haul himself out of the opening he’d created earlier. Dragging and stumbling, he made it to the jeep and climbed in. Waiting for the images to clear enough to see the road, he cranked the engine, turned on his hazards and guided the jeep at a slow creep towards the police station. Visions ebbed and flowed in their strength as he drove, filling the car with screaming, his body and consciousness with pain and--

Derek. For Derek--

\--desultory panic until he was sure he would burst. He ended up at the station, the cover up for the Institute, and dragged himself out of the car, crawling. He was close enough to Derek now that the tether grew strong enough to hold on to as he crawled towards the black tree in front of it and lay out on the ground around its black roots, screaming silently into the night, up into the full moon. Digging his nails into the ground to ground himself to the plane as more and more surged, the entire state was steeped in the blood of unsettled, unhonored supernaturals with various ties to the cult of Ravi. Echoes of centuries of detraction and scorn echoed in his ears as he curled up and lay there for most of a day, reliving the last moments of every lycan that had been left unsettled during the wars, whose blood soaked Texas ground. The spirits of those murdered by the Institute as well. He felt them all rushing into him, into his conscious and he grit his teeth and remembered them, felt them all and honored them all. His blood falling from his body became their dirge and their memories were nothing but din in his inner space which he forced himself to listen to even as his ears bled. 

It was late on the night of the next day when the figure appeared to him, a woman, diaphanous, naked and looking upon him with the eyes of Ravi, glowing and soft with veneration and love. Grateful and at peace, Lieutenant Tyson was coming out of the station then, but the woman paid her no mind even as she stopped to stare. Their features were similar enough that Stiles could have guessed  _ daughter  _ not relative or descendant. 

“ _ Aq’Ravi. δ’a il toi nava…A’Ravi.  A’zilδo δoi nava |'pella.” _

She faded into a beam of moonlight and stardust as Stiles felt something warm in his chest, a tiny spark or something and his body mended, though the aches of the past still remained. He stood on shaky legs, exhausted, but triumphant.

Definitely, gossamer thin dumb luck and maybe a pinch of ingenuity. He winced, feeling his ribs twinge and the echoes of his injuries from being thrown around, from being beaten and broken by the wrath of spirits, but as the tree above him began to blossom, and the cop that had been standing guard outside dropped his doughnut on the ground, Stiles knew that he’d won. Two days he’d said, it hadn’t really even been two days, had it? 

So he stood up straight and walked slowly, stumbling towards the front doors and into the building, straight to the clerk who had sneered at him before and threatened to blow his head off. The man took one look at Stiles and went pale. He looked like hell had beat his ass and thrown him back to the living to beat him again. Blackened, bruised, purpling, bleeding, his clothes tattered and soaked in blood. Blood falling from his lips. He stumbled and wheezed, maybe from a collapsed lung and glared at the man. 

“Hell…”

“Been there, the tree is blossoming. Where the hell is my partner?”

The man’s eyes narrowed, “I don’t--”

A hot slice of pain sliced through the man’s cheek and his eyes widened at Stiles holding the gun up. He looked like he shouldn’t even be moving, how had he managed to draw his gun and fire so quickly.

And...why were his eyes glowing like the full moon.

“The next shot is between your eyebrows, understand?”

***

Derek stared at the man holding the scalpel. He inspected that scalpel with a sick glee.

“I wanted to  abscise pieces of flesh,” he said with that flat voice. “Study them. See if they healed on their own… see how fast you would heal…”

Derek watched him, his face neutral. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been there as all the lights were always on, straining his already frayed nerves and annoying. But he’d been there long enough to be kept awake by the screaming of past lives in his ears… screaming that seemed oddly silent now, just faint echoes. The other’s heart was beating so fast, he could smell fear, excitement, and arousal. He was barely  abstaining from cutting into Derek. Drool gathering in his mouth. Derek didn’t care, dizzy with blood loss, wolfsbane, and antidote swirling in his veins. He’d thrown up black ooze on to the floor and on several of the nurses in retaliation, they had yet to make him, or Der’aq, talk and it was now that they planned on bringing out the big guns. His wolf had resettled in his chest as the man dipped the scalpel in wolfsbane.

“Let’s get started shall we?”

He gripped his hands and curled his fists tight as the scalpel came closer and then unthinkable happened.

“ _ Davis,”  _ The woman said, gritting her teeth. “ _ He’s been cleared. _ ”

Men came in to undo the straps they had him under. He managed to roll onto his feet, wobbling, but they didn’t seem to care, grabbing him roughly and hauling him out of the room. He heard the sound of a phone breaking into pieces from the command room.

_ He should have broken! Goddamn worthless hicks! _

Derek wanted to laugh, but found that he was in too much pain to do so. As they dragged him through the Institute and shoved his clothing into his hands and pushed him into the squad car. The sheriff said nothing as he laid in the back seat, breathing heavily and coughing up wolfsbane on to the floor.

“ _ Jesus Christ,” _ They didn’t stop, instead they pulled into the station and hauled him out, through the back and towards the bench in front of the holding cells to be processed out. They had Lieutenant Tyson pull his cuffs off and when their eyes met he understood why the scent of wolfsbane made her smell strangely. 

“Your friend is coming back here to get you,” she said softly and removed the cuffs before stepping away to do some sort of paperwork and head back out. He barely heard her beyond the door, speaking to Stiles. 

“He’s there, but he’s weak,” she said and he nodded.

Wiping his face on his sleeve, and trying to stabilize his walking, he staggered forward and opened the door to see Derek, promising he would shoot every single cop in the station between the eyebrows if they were fucking with him.

His eyes were dark with lack of sleep, his face pale and he looked up at Stiles almost beseechingly. The green of his eyes had turned an almost flat olive in the light. God he looked tired… what had they been doing to him while under observation? Stiles knew that they did terrible things to lycans in stations like these where the Alliance wasn’t exactly well thought of. Given that they’d planned to kill them both, he wasn’t surprised either. The fact that he was here still and no one had been mauled yet was a testament to exactly how exhausted… He had to get him home, away from this place. Him and Lieutenant Tyson away from here as fast as possible… even if that meant driving through the night. 

Derek wanted to say something, but the look on Stiles’s face when he walked through the station to get him stopped him. He looked terrible, there was a little color to his cheeks, but it was his eyes and his scent that gave him away. Worry, stress, lack of sleep, and pain. He’d been worried for Derek and at the moment he was probably giving him no reason not to worry. More than that, whatever he’d done… had caused him a great deal of turmoil himself. From the state of his clothing, the blood stains and the staggering way he walked, Derek knew it hadn’t been pretty. This particular station had been built during the war and still held the memories and scents of hundreds of lycans that had been held and tortured there. The fact that the screaming had stopped sometime earlier meant that Stiles did more than cleanse the town… but maybe more than that. He hadn’t slept at all, hearing the pain of his distant brethren, their human companions and torturers. The cell had been cleaned, remodeled, but the old blood and and the musty smell of sorrow had soaked into the very foundation of the building. The tests had been excruciating, but he hadn’t broken, proving that he was stronger…

And Stiles had proven that he was stronger still...

The Institute had practically been a lycan mausoleum which made his wolf a Banshee hearing the whispers of the dead… at least that had been the case until this morning and the ease of the ghostly presence had been enough to to make the torture a little easier to bear. Stiles had done it… apparently at great cost to himself.

“You said two,” Derek breathed. “How many days has it been?”

“A little less than one,” he said, coming closer. 

Stiles kneeled shakily in front of him, looking at him as let his body relax against the wall, too tired to move, Stiles bit his lip and Derek watched him, smelling the shifts in his scents. He learned Stiles’s scents since the first time they met. He was worried, afraid, apologetic but mostly worried, in serious pain… and there was something new.

“I’m fine,” Derek said. “Just get me out of here.”

Stiles nodded slowly, “Alright.”

Stiles nods and stands to help Derek onto his feet. Together, leaning on each other, they stagger towards the jeep and drive to the motel. Stiles leaves Derek in the car as he goes to grab their things, check in with Scott and turn in the keys. He climbs into the seat with a groan.

“One stop,” he said with a breath and started the engine. He turned away from the motel and towards the far side of town, barely breathing, hardly moving and wincing at every bump on the dirt road to the house of Kenya Tyson. It was old, practically in pieces and the only place she was guaranteed to be. 

Stiles got out as Derek was practically asleep in the passenger seat and went to knock on the door. She appeared, fully packed and awake. He placed the keys in her hand.

"Please drive," he said.

She nodded and steered him back to the car. He climbed into the back, laying across the seats as she got in the driver's seat.

"Food beneath Derek's legs...drive straight out of Texas... Wake when you need to switch. Gas in trunk."

He heard the cranking of the jeep's engine, the vroom and felt it depart from the curb.

"You the only one?" Stiles asked.

"They all left ages ago," she said.

_ Sucks, _ "We don't leave pack behind."

That was all he managed to say before passing out to the sound of the road beneath tires and the cleared free air. He was sure that someone was pissed off with the change in the Texas landscape, but he didn't care. Nor did he care how much of a pain it would be to write these reports. None of that mattered though as they’d discomfited the Alliance, the small town of jackasses, the mysterious Institute, the Lycan Elders, and the imminent apocalypse. Stiles wasn’t sure how long he’d slept, but when he woke up, he felt much better, hungry, and Derek was awake and talking with the lieutenant.

“I suppose I should know your name shouldn’t I?” Derek asked. 

“Laia,” she told him with a grin. “Thank you both… for letting me come along.”

“Thank you for helping us,” Stiles said, sitting up with a groan and a wince. “We know you didn’t have to.”

She smiled as Derek passed food back to Stiles and they stopped for gas. Per Stiles request, she’d driven the quickest route out of Texas. They were back in Alliance territory which meant they could take a breather. She chunked the wolfsbane inhaler and the scent suppression as Stiles pumped gas with a sigh.

“Free?”

She nodded, “Very…”

He checked on Derek, who looked exhausted and still just pale, but as he’d managed to scarf down half their food supply, Stiles took it to mean that he was well on the way to recovery. Laia was kind enough to drive them all the way to Beacon Hills so that they could both catch some much needed rest. They stopped at the Lycan shelter first, to check her in with the police station and the embassy. When Derek could, he would come back, but as this was the only place she could be looked over properly and helped towards getting in touch with her wolf again, it was the only place to go. Once she was settled, Derek directed Stiles towards the Hale Estate, a large part of the forest preserve that the Hale family still owned.

Stiles hadn’t known that they’d--

They hadn’t. Because the house had changed little since the fire, there were the obvious marks of construction work, but the feeling of loneliness and destruction was still strong. Looking at the remains of the Hale House, he wondered if Derek was parsimonious or just stuck in mourning. He knew that lycans, like wolves, were more than content to lay, sleep, and live in the place of their loved ones’ death, but he couldn’t process why Derek would. Wolves mourned and mourned deeply, but eventually they moved on. It had been years for Derek… had he not even pitched a tent?

Was it because he had nothing to move on to?... Or was it just punishment.

“You sleep here?”

“Yes,” Derek grunted. “Most nights.”

Stiles swallowed, and before Derek could manage the strength to reach for the door’s handles, pulled the car away from the front of the burned remains and back down the partially paved driveway.

“Stiles,” he wheezed. “Where are you going?”

“I’m not leaving you here to … sulk in your burned out house after being in that  _ hell _ .”

“I’m fine and it’s being rebuilt--”

“Then you can sleep in it when it’s done.” 

Derek had a feeling that there was something that Stiles wasn’t say. Stiles didn’t say that the ghosts of the past weren’t staring him in the face everywhere he turned, didn’t say that staying in that house surrounded by their last moments was not the way to go. He could have, but he didn’t. 

“In the meantime, you can stay with me and then I’m taking you apartment shopping if my tiny apartment drives you crazy.”

Derek opened his mouth to protest, but Stiles beat him to it.

“Please? You have a team now, you don’t have to keep company with just ghosts anymore…”

Derek swallowed his complaint as Stiles went on.

“It may not be pack… but it’s better than ashes.”

He hadn’t thought of that. He did feel closer to his family, there in the house of ashes…. among their last painful moments. Sometimes he woke up, hearing them screaming through the flames that breathed hot puffs down his neck. Those nights were the worst and the times he worked out the hardest, until exhaustion pulled him under and held him until morning. 

He always thought they were memories, the spirits that remained… some sort of penance for what had happened, how he hadn’t been strong enough to save any of them...to save Laura, to save anyone. Even Cora and Malia had only happened to be away. Had they always only been ghosts? The haunted feeling of his guilt that surrounded him…?The ghost of his life before Kate? Had he been mourning them or himself all this time?

He says nothing else as Stiles drives them toward his apartment building. They manage to get up the stairs and into the elevator. Stiles unlocks the door.

"Welcome to Casa de Stiles."

The concentration of Stiles's scent hits him full force and instantly, his wolf reacts, humming low in his chest. Stiles smells like peace and warmth, the woods and safety... He smells like home and that should honestly frighten him, but it doesn't. Stiles steers him toward an overstuffed couch to sit while he goes to the kitchen to rustle up something eatable.

"How about perfectly marinated steaks?"

Derek smirks at that, "Sounds great."

"Be warned, I make a mean steak and vegetables are a requirement."

"That's fine," he said. "You cooked for your dad for a long time didn't you?"

Stiles made a sound like agreement, turning on the stove, pulling out pots and getting the makings of dinner together as Derek's body relaxes into the couch and his senses take in the entire apartment. It's small, just enough for one person, but it's filled with Stiles. The bookshelves range from magic theory to comic books, pictures exist everywhere, standing together, posted on walls, in frames...There's color and life and all the things that make Stiles himself there. Derek can only guess that the bedroom and bathroom are much of the same. The TV is small, but attached to two game systems. The makeshift shelves beneath the TV are filled with video games, classic and brand new. There are a few that he recognized from his childhood. The same is true of the books on the shelves, the comics and pop culture references. 

He smiles a bit, this is probably what his own apartment would have looked like if things had turned out a little differently... He knows that he dozes while on the couch, but it couldn't have been that long as the steaks are medium rare, he won't say perfect, and the rest of the meal couldn't have taken long. 

"You're more tired than you realize," Stiles told him when they were done, lifting his plate from his hands. "Down the hall is the bathroom. Take a shower, you smell like wolfsbane."

Derek, oddly enough, does as he's told, heading towards the bathroom. Stiles tells him to leave his clothes in the basket by the sink, use one of the fluffiest towels he's ever seen and try not to pass out in the tub. He manages not to pass out, though he feels as though he might, but can't fumble his pants on in the steamy room, so forgoes getting dressed to stumble down the hall. Stiles is starting a load of clothes, washing dishes and on the phone with Scott when he comes out.

"We're alright Scott, he's here at my place. Swing by tomorrow? We're both pretty wiped. Yeah, see you then."

Stiles looked up to see him, stumbling down the hall and his breath leaves him. His mind goes silent and his mouth is dry… He wants to lick the water off his skin… and there’s so much of it… So much of it exposed… He hadn’t known the towel would be so short, probably barely long enough to keep Derek’s package as a bulge against the front rather than peaking from beneath. But besides that, it was his stumbling that caught his attention--Derek didn’t stumble, and why wasn’t he dressed? Stiles rounded the kitchen to steady him and guide him towards the couch until his head stopped spinning.

“Please don’t tell me you sleep in the nude…”

Derek let out a pitiful chuckle at that, “Smart ass.”

_ Well he can still insult me, means he’s not totally broken. _

“Just… need a second…”

Stiles nodded, doing his best not to track the droplets of water from the ends of Derek’s hair, down his face, through his beard and lower… lower…

“I’m going to go take a shower,” he announced turning quickly to get up and head towards the still steamy bathroom. 

He runs the shower ice cold and thinks he may have a clear head, until he gets dressed for bed, checks the locks and lights in his apartment, unloads his gun and finds Derek Hale in his bed asleep. 

_ Oh Shit, _ Stiles swallows, standing in the doorway for a second. The fact that the man doesn’t wake up means he’s vulnerable, tired, and maybe trusting Stiles not to do anything untoward. It made his heart quake a little. 

But he shrugged, there was only one bed in the apartment and the couch wasn’t exactly the best idea for either of them in their conditions. So he climbed into bed, under the blankets and finds that sleeping beside a lycan was even more awesome than he remembered: he was  _ toasty. _

The fact that Derek had quickly, slung an arm over his waist and pulled him up against him to spoon him had nothing to do with that at all. Instead, he smiled lightly and stroked Derek’s hand, gripping his hip.

“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The grip didn’t ease, but the tenseness in him did and eventually he went to sleep too


	14. In His DNA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spoiler Alert: Derek loves Stiles

What he wasn’t prepared for in the morning was that Derek was gone. The sheets were still warm from his presence, but the older man was nowhere to be found. There was no note, his doors were still locked. He could only guess that he’d escaped through the window. Who would have known that spooning with Stiles’s skinny, pale form would send him running for the hills?

At least that’s what he thinks until he hears the door open, “Stiles? Derek? Are you guys alive?”

He turns over and groans, “In here Scott.”

He expects the other to come in immediately, but instead hears voices in the kitchen. He recognizes Scott’s and Kira’s, but the third…

_ Derek? _

He sat up and grumbled his way to standing before shuffling towards the kitchen to be hit with the smell of canadian bacon, eggs, pancakes and so much food he thought he would faint. Scott was sitting at his table, his gaze directed into the kitchen. Kira sat at his table as well. Stiles rounded the corner to see Derek in an old gray t-shirt, sweatpants, and barefoot… making breakfast to feed an army.

“Good Morning,” he said and nodded towards the table. “Have a seat.”

Stiles slid into the chair beside Kira and watch in amazement. It was obvious that derek knew his way around a kitchen… the fact that he could navigate Stiles’s kitchen however was surprising. Stiles’s kitchen was… less that regularly organized, but Derek didn’t seem to mind. 

“You can navigate the kitchen?” Scott asked. “I still can’t.”

Derek shrugged, “I think I know how his brain works now.”

Scott nodded, “So… Stiles said something about… you becoming an alpha?”

Derek smirked as Stiles hit himself in the head. Trust Scott to get straight to the elephant in the room. Kira laughed as Derek began to carry plates to the table for all of them and syrup. 

“Yes… though… I’m not sure how. I’d… have to do some research. Find a druid that reads ancient lycan...”

That was going to be a pain in the ass. Lycan Elders didn’t even read ancient lycan, swearing that there was no need to as they had all the useful knowledge already translated. He didn’t trust them or their translations and being that they didn’t have the books kept in the Hale Family Vault, he knew they were full of it. He’d have to contact Liam again to see if he’d made any headway on finding someone that could read it because as he’d said “No one reads ancient lycan… everyone who did… died in that fire.”

“Or a spark, maybe.”

Scott swallowed a slice of ham and motioned to Stiles, “What for? You’ve got a Stiles.”

Derek’s eyes slid over to Stiles and waited as the man chewed his food slowly and took a gulp of juice.

“Stiles.”

Stiles continued to drink and Kira thought it was almost comical.  He would never learn that ignoring the problem long enough wouldn’t make it go away, especially when it’s staring at you.

“Stiles.”

Stiles makes a show of taking a larger drink before returning to tiny sips.

“ _ Stiles. _ ”

He held up a hand and kept drinking tiny sips.

Derek growled finally in warning and Stiles set the cup down, hardly any lower than when he picked it up.

“Refreshing!” Stiles declared. “What were you guys talking about?”

“You read ancient lycan?”

“I...uh… yeah?”

“ _ How? _ ”

Stiles blinked and, completely serious, began to explain the mechanics of reading. Kira did her best not to giggle and Scott dedicated himself to another pancake while Derek began to growl, baring his teeth and his sometimes-green eyes filled with fury.

“ _ Stiles... _ I’m going to rip your throat out… with my teeth.”

Stiles grunted, “Back to the bodily harm...Oh Derek, I knew they couldn’t keep you down for long--”

“Stiles, this is serious.”

“What?”

“ _ Lycan Elders _ don’t even read ancient lycan.”

“Well… they missed a literature class…”

“How did you learn to speak lycan?”

“Max.”

“Is that all you speak?”

“Well no…”

“What?”

“No that isn’t all I speak--”

“Stiles,  _ what else? _ ”

“Well… I speak all the shifter languages…my Polish is pretty good… and my Ancient Gree-”

“ _ What? _ ”

“And of course I dabbled in French, but… oh and Japanese… ‘cause I had to teach Scott how to mack on Kira properly.”

Scott flushed and Kira giggled, giving him a kiss, “It’s okay. It was cute, obviously.”

“ _ I meant how did you learn to speak the other shifter languages… _ ”

“Well they’re all spirit-y... that’s all. I mean, it’s not that big of a deal right?”

Derek stared at him before closing his eyes and breathing out slowly. Stiles, for all his brilliance, was extremely good at either playing dumb or being dense at the most inopportune times.

“How?”

“Well I just kind of learned.”

“What do you mean you just kind of learned? It’s not something you just  _ kind of learn _ , Stiles! Have you any idea what that kind of knowledge could do for the lycan community, hell the shifter community?”

He knew but he said nothing as Derek went on.

“You kind of learn how to speak. You kind of learn how to read in your native language because it’s everywhere. You don’t just  _ kind of learn  _ to read a dead language!”

“Well my mom read it.” He said. “And I spent a lot of time with Druids at the compound up north when she and dad were away or with mom’s side of the family, they all taught me a bunch of things… When I couldn’t pay attention, they had me run around a lot and made me learn things to keep me busy. It was great fun.”

“Your mother,” Derek started. “That’s not surprising, she was a spark.”

“Well… I was bored and I asked her to teach me.”

“And she taught you?”

“Yeah.”

“And you read it.”

“Yes Derek, that does imply--”

“ _ Don’t be a smart ass… _ ” Derek growled pulling out his phone. “ _ Teeth. Neck.” _

Stiles groaned helplessly, “What do you want? I read ancient lycan--yes.”

Derek shoved a screen in his face, Stiles recognized it as an old lycan scroll on medicine. 

“Read it.”

Stiles rolled his eyes and took the phone, turning it to get the glyphs in the right direction. 

“It’s a medicinal journal, talks about making opium for lycans during the beginning days of the war...It’s well preserved too, preservation circles in the paper.“

He handed back the phone, “Now that I know that there exists a strain of chamomile that negates wolfsbane’s affects and reduces it to a painkiller, will you chill out?”

Derek stared at him like some impossible thing, “Really?”

“Yes. That’s what that portion says.”

“What else can you do,” Derek asks. “That’s oddly spark like?”

Stiles’s heart stuttered and that drew Scott’s attention.

“That gun--”

“Hey,  _ spark gun _ does not imply that only sparks can wield it.”

“To the full extent they do.”

“That’s different,” he rolled his eyes. “I haven’t had a need to mega kick someone’s ass with my gun yet. If that happens, I’ll let you know.”

“You speak lycan, like you’re lycan.”

“Yeah...that’s lots of practice.  _ And _ it really came in handy when Scott turned lycan teenager on me.”

“Stiles,” Derek sighed, rubbing the space between his eyebrows. “I don’t believe you’re understanding what I’m trying to tell you.”

“What?”

“Either you’re a druid, secretly, or you’re a spark..”

Stiles went pale and Scott opened his mouth to try and diffuse the situation but Stiles beat him to it, “Y-You want me to translate these books, wherever they are, for you or not? Or you could always go to the Druid compound--go for it. I don’t imagine they’ll uh… welcome you too warmly… but feel free! Even better luck trying to find a spark compound to go to and get them to read it for you.”

“We’re going to have to talk about this,” Derek says finally, finishing the last of his breakfast as Stiles drags a piece of his own through syrup, more playing with it than attempting to eat it.

“Why?”

“Let’s see… I spent all of two or three days in Lycan Elder custody because I managed to become an alpha somehow? Then, there’s an Institute in Texas that tried to dissect me...You don’t think that they’re still tracking me? Waiting for a reason to send me back--”

“Oh I know they’re still tracking you, obviously they’re still tracking you--”

“ _ And you don’t that me being partnered with you, depending on what you actually are, might raise some suspicions? _ ”

Stiles was about to speak, but winced at that and knew it was serious. He hadn’t really been paying attention, so used to speaking lycan with Derek that he’d understood the meaning before he’d heard the words. It was never good when Derek changed to speaking lycan, the warm brush of his words across his face and at the core of him. They only spoke lycan around Scott when he didn’t want him and Kira to understand. They hadn’t quite figured out how to tell the two about their weird pact yet either.

“To add to our predicament? _ ” _

“Well…” Stiles started. “I wouldn’t call it a predicament…”

“Do you understand the danger?”

“Yes...Mom.”

Derek sighs, “There’s no winning with you.”

“Nope! Not at all.”

Scott only caught pieces of it and he wondered if it was intentional to switch or not, but when they start speaking English again he knows that Derek has given up and Stiles has won something.

When Stiles finally gets done eating, Derek forced him to drive to the Hale property. The construction crew waved at them, paying them little attention, even as they watched Derek with curious eyes. He leads Stiles to the backyard near the Hale cemetery and steps on to the Stone circle.

“There was an entrance in the house, but there’s no point in going through the house while they’re still rebuilding it.”

The stone lit up, light filling the ancient runes. Runes that Stiles could read and made his heart race. Dear gods, the circle was in ancient lycan, powerful old words that meant more than could be imagined. He’d written the containment spell on the magic box for Scott but that had been barely brushing the tip of lycan magic. Derek pulled him on to the stone with him and Stiles watched in amazement. Feeling the rush of magic through him, taking stock of him, an imprint and storing it into the glyphs on the ground. It had recognized him as harmless, as pack.

“Good to know you have no evil intentions,” Derek said as the ground slid open and the staircase appeared lit with glowing moonstones to lead the way.

“What you’re about to see is a Hale family secret.”

“Well, why the hell do I need to go in with you--"

"Because I can't read it!" Derek growled and huffed.

"Sorry," Stiles breathes, a little too small for Derek's liking. Stiles can feel the anger and frustration in the way his wolf seems to prowl around inside him, pacing. 

"I'm sorry that you can't read it."

Derek almost groans at the way he says it. Stiles is smart, he knows he is and he can hear the mile a minute thoughts and feelings in Stiles's head. He's thinking of how disconnected that makes him from his ancestors, how it wouldn't have been the case if Talia Hale was still alive... how things would be different if Kate had never entered his life.

"I'm sorry too," Derek replies, carding his hand through his hair. "In any case... you're not allowed to say anything about what you see in here."

"Okay...”

Derek begins the descent down the staircase that pulses at each footstep. Stiles swallowed and followed him, hearing the entrance close above them even as the moonstones lit the way. Derek didn’t seem to need the lights or any direction as they were all carved in lycan glyphs, too old for Derek to read. The entire chamber seemed as though it was just too old for Derek to read, ancient, timeless and preserved by that old pack magic, the will of Ravi.

“This place is amazing…”he said as the artwork, depictions of lycan history and the Hale involvement with it began to fill with light, words worked in to tell the story even as the pictures showed it.

“You can read all this?”

“Yes,” he said stopping Derek to point, “This one. This is Skye Hale.”

Derek saw the woman, her face streaked with blood and growling, her eyes flashing red.

“Come on, the library is this way.”

It’s through another room and another set of stairs covered with history and ancestors of the Hale line. Derek stops occasionally to ask for a translation.

"What is that?"

Derek glances at the glass case and the wall of objects, "Weaponry."

"Lycan weaponry?" Stiles asked tilting his head as the glyphs aren’t all lycan, but definitely shifter.

"Shifter weaponry actually."

"Wow, that's awesome...My little nerd heart can't take this!"

Derek can only smile and thank the heavens that Stiles can't see in the dark. His wolf snuffles lightly, content that Stiles is happy and Derek can't help himself, indulging Stiles's curiosity about various things they pass, even as Stiles answers his questions.  

"A statue of a grandfather," Derek pointed out and then his breath stopped seeing the large family portrait. It was the last one they'd ever had. 

Daniel, another cousin he'd lost in the fire, had been a skilled painter, he'd done portraits of most of the family reunions when he was able to. The scene was in front of the family house, in front of the old fountain that had been reduced to nothing when the blaze spread. It had been a miracle that it hadn't turned into a full on forest fire. But it was there in all its glory. He hadn't known that this is where they'd kept the older ones, the ones that weren't hung on the wall. 

At the second set of descending stairs, Stiles asks, "So... how deep is this magical library?"

"Deep and it extends under a good portion of the territory, if not all. The story goes that the Hale family sank it into the ground and locked it so the knowledge couldn't be used incorrectly..."

"But it's turned into... not at all...because no one can read the really important stuff."

Derek nodded.

Stiles followed him, glancing across the walls wondering how much they could learn from the walls alone until he reached the library. Books, scrolls, and parchment too old to be real, but here and not dust filled the large room. It had to extend far beyond the size of the house. How were they going to find anything in here?

“Some of these books are more recent so I can read them, but the books I’m concerned about are from Skye Hale’s time and before… a language that I can’t read.”

Stiles nodded, following him through the stacks to the very back. He can practically feel the power emanating from the stacks of books. 

“Back there… the circle… recognized me as pack didn’t it? As in a part of the Hale pack?”

"Yes."

"Does that mean I could come down here without you?"

"Yes... but if you did--"

"You'd.... tear my throat out... with your teeth."

Derek nodded a wolfish grin, "You got it."

Stiles sighed again, "You could have just not... made me pack to your magic chamber circle..."

"Shut up."

"Ok."

It was Derek's turn to sigh as he watched the expression shift on Stiles's face. It withdrew too quickly for his tastes, back beyond the line of friendship they seemed to be crossing, hesitantly and too damn slowly. His wolf thrashed, whining, reaching his paws out to touch, to feel to be closer... to own, but Derek held him back, reminding him of Kate, of where exactly Derek was on the road to recovery.

"My wolf likes you," is all he can say.

"We've established that..." Stiles said turning, his attention jumping elsewhere as it did when he didn’t take Adderall. "You know... the druid library would love to get their hands on some of these preservation spells, to preserve stuff so they won't have to keep copying them..."

"Stiles."

"Shutting up."

"Thank you," he said. "We're looking for something about alphas."

"There's plenty of stuff about alphas, it's a lycan library... full of lycan... stuff."

"Just... look."

"Sorry," Stiles grumbled. "Doc says I shouldn't have Adderall while I'm on Vicodin... usually I'm all for skipping my meds, but it's been a while."

Derek nodded, he hadn't taken anything the days they were in Texas, or while he was in the hospital before they left. How Stiles was even still functioning with the rapid fire impulses that shot through his brain, uninhibited by the Adderall, was a mystery. It gave Derek a headache whenever he tapped into Stiles's mind.

"I can only imagine," he said after a moment, heading towards a stack. Stiles was behind him, his eyes flickering over the spines, "Books, books.. plenty of books... books, books... plenty of books...."

He pulls one after another off the shelf and flips it open gingerly, "Mating practices... courting practices... soul mates...ooh, rage against the machine--ooh, war!"

Derek shakes his head at Stiles’s antics. 

"...lycan ascensions... the will of Ravi! We do have a Ravi book. Let's see what we've got..."

Stiles carries the three books, all rather thick and stuffed with notes that Stiles is careful not to mix together as they journey to the small table. 

He finds that the table is not only sturdy, but relatively new, "Your family would come down here often wouldn't they?"

He nodded, "Mom would let us pick books for her to read to us."

Stiles nodded and opened the book on top. It was on the cult of Ravi. 

"The Will of Ravi... the will of the Pack, with a capital p... Ravi is a deity...I've met her...I think."

"You've met Ravi?" Derek asks staring at him incredulously. 

"Ravi-On, but yeah. I've met her, she was nice... she kicked my ass but once she realized I actually meant no harm and was there to help, we got along pretty well."

"What did she say to you?" Derek asked. It wasn't every day that someone met a deity. He should have told him way sooner. "You've spoken to her."

"Yes, she's rather nice... she didn't heal my wounds, or take away the pain, but she sounded rather nice."

"Focus Stiles, what did she say?"

Stiles frowned trying to recall the words, "Aq’Ravi..."

Derek nodded, "She announced herself to you... when was this?"

"When we were in Texas, I assume she was there to try and comfort the wronged spirits... or just appeared to take them home after they'd been honored."

Derek breathed, "What else?"

"Uhm... δ’a il toi nava…A’Ravi...and uhm... A’zilδo δoi nava |'pella."

Derek made a sound.

"I know, I thought it was pretty cool... despite all the pain. I mean look at me...getting sanctioned by the shifter goddess."

Derek couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken with Ravi, too lost and maybe too angry with the deity to pray or do anything like it. Yet, she had not come to him either... Had he been abandoned? Maybe not... 

"The spirits, before they were honored, they called me A’tsuli-va…which was kind of cool. I thought wow they really knew my mom was a spark. That's so cool."

Derek growled, "Stiles, I don't think they were referring to the fact that your mother was a spark. When we say something like A'tsuli-va, it just means you are a young member of the species, not that your parents were of that species."

"Oh... really? You think she thought I was a spark?"

"Know, she knows you’re a spark, like I know you're a spark... it makes so much sense."

Stiles huffed, no it didn't make any sense really for him to be a spark. You only inherited a spark in a few ways, most of which were impossible for him and the others were too chilling to think about, and technically the use of “va” in relation to a species could go either way depending on the context. Stiles wasn’t unfounded in his belief that Ravi merely knew that his mother had been a spark, but there’s that dark voice laughing at him.

_ You know the truth, Stiles… You have it and it’s not that kind of shadow. _

"So much sense."

"Why? It doesn't make any sense from where I'm standing, I'm a boy...remember?"

"Yes, I know you're a boy. I'm very aware that you're a boy... What I also know is that your scent is different."

"You mean the screwy scent profile? Yeah, mom had one too."

"That's a classically spark thing...it happens to normal humans with magical ability too.. It's because your scent is mixed with  _ 'On _ ."

" _ 'On _ ? Really?"

"Yes, that's just how people with magic, sparks and magically inclined people like Druids, are."

"Really? I never would have thought of that... although Dad has a pretty screwy scent profile, so I'm told... but it wouldn't have anything to with the whole Adderall deal?"

"Medications smell different."

In fact, Stiles never smelled like he took any sort of medication, not even the vicodin, yet another indicator that he wasn’t human. Stiles shrugged, not entirely buying into the theory but not discrediting it either. Even if he was a spark, he wouldn't be the kind his mother was. She'd had real power... Stiles would be probably one of those low level ones… assuming that it was a natural inheritance and not--

"Go on," he said. "Lay out your case, Agent Hale."

Derek shook his head, "The fact that you can speak shifter languages, big hint."

"I'm a very cunning linguist."

The words went straight to his gut.

"I have a very talented tongue--"

"Stop," Derek said. Preferably, before he ended up boning his partner in the middle of the family library with all his ancestor's spirits hanging around. That would be a terrible idea.

"Druids can speak it."

"Yeah, but when a druid speaks lycan, I can tell they're a druid. You speak lycan as if you are lycan."

"Oh, that's a good thing right? I could pose for lycan--"

"You couldn't pose for lycan, you don't smell like one."

"Right..." Stiles said. "The really big spirit, pre-Ravi meeting, said something about h’crief voce, h'crief sa..."

"Yes, that's what we say about people who speak lycan and aren't lycan... h'crief sa probably refers to the spirit pact. They are stolen words...it's a very old term for that sort of thing."

"I told them that..."

"They probably thought you were hijacking my spirit..."

"I told them you lent it to me."

He nodded, "Probably the only reason you weren't killed."

"Now that we know all of this, what now?"

Derek glared at him, "Now, you're still looking for an answer to what is happening to me."

Stiles nodded, they'd gotten side tracked with the fact that he'd met Ravi. He turned back to the book before him. The Will of Ravi as at least the chapter was called.

"I found at least one that will answer it from a spiritual side."

"And why didn't you say anything?"

"Well, we were talking..."

Derek sighed hopelessly, frustrated and frightened that maybe he'd never get an answer or maybe Stiles just didn't care. He knew he did, but his lack of attention was beginning to make him doubt that fact. 

"Stiles..."

Stiles hung his head, looking down at the book, "Sorry."

Derek shook his head, placing a hand on his and letting his wolf reach out as well, "It's fine... I know you can't help it..."

"I can't..."

"It's fine...just--book."

"Right... book...book."

It was endearing to see him looking so studiously at the book, glyphs that made no sense to Derek in their order, but apparently Stiles knew what he was doing as his eyes flickered too quick across the page. He was almost tempted to tap into that link, but there was no telling what would happen if he did.

"The history of alphas!" Stiles announced.

"Really?"

Stiles shrugged, "More or less.  _ Alphas of the Past _ ...interesting that it's in the will of Ravi chapter though."

He turned his eyes back to the page and began to translate aloud for Derek's benefit. In the beginning there were three alpha brothers: Hale, Marcus, and Wind, the progenitors of the three original packs, who banded together to live.

"Or rather, survive, to prosper, and rule. The word's got a bunch of tangled meanings, anyway..."

At the time, there were shifters that didn't get along and they banded together to defend their territories and did so rather well.

"Okay, did they say anything about how they became alphas? Were they born alphas?"

Stiles shrugged, "The will of Ravi."

"God damnit."

"Yeah, there's nothing terrible specific about that...When they use it here though, they definitely mean like the will of the universe... I assume in relation to everything I know about lycan history, theories, rituals, spirituality... you know..."

"Will of the universe?"

Stiles nodded, "Kind of dictates when things happen, what things happen, shifts in fate all that. Keeps in mind the things that need to happen so that the shifter race can continue to prosper."

He goes back to flipping through pages, "There's also Ravi proper, the deity, and then Ravi as in Pack."

"What else?"

"It just says the will of Ravi will choose its leaders... I use choose lightly because it's more complicated--more like ordain..."

"Just great," Derek huffed. "How did we get the whole transferring of alpha powers then? Alpha to alpha?"

Stiles looks through the page, "It's possible that it's just hereditary, they had kids that inherited the alpha characteristics... but I'm not entirely sold on that."

"How'd we get the other alphas then?"

"I don't know."

"You have the books, Stiles."

"Oh...well yeah, it doesn't really say anything about that. It just says the will of ravi made these three and then the others just sort of happened... at least that's what I've got so far... give me a second."

"They became born alphas?"

Stiles nodded, according to the book, in the afterlife, the lycan spirits with Ravi train and when they are reincarnated, they come back as alphas.

"Lycan afterlife is actually like a training ground?"

"That’s the theory that's written here. It doesn't really hold for the three that became alphas in their mortal life though."

"Does it say anything about them?"

Stiles nodded and read the rough translation to him. Apparently, they would have gone through a very different kind of training, the first alphas were more of alphas of necessity, those that "forged their fate".

"Alphas of necessity."

"As in they saw a need, and filled that need... like they pulled the alpha power from the other side into this plane as well as Ravi bestowed power unto them."

Derek nodded, "Does it say anything about how? Or what this power is for?"

"To lead, that's all. To protect."

"Anything about how they're different?"

Stiles nodded getting to the paragraph and frowning, a lot of the words had multiple meanings. He asked for Derek's phone to snap a picture to try and translate it more precisely another time before reading it out to him.

"It's a rough translation, but it says something like... those ordained by Ravi on this plane, those that suffer the hardship, see the pain of the pack, and step forward to end it, on the beloved place of Ravi have a ... oneness with their blessedness, a oneness with their blessing... such that the blessing is their self and their self is the blessing."

Derek frowned, "Blessing? Ordained? Oneness?"

"Definitely refers to alpha-ness, but the word is tangled it means both burden and blessing, a curse as well... but it implies that the person chose it or requested it..."

"What about this ordained part? The oneness?"

"The word can mean ordained as in someone ordains you, but it also can mean achieved as in worked for. But it can imply an unintentional journey towards it... as if you worked really hard unknowingly for something and then it was given to you out of the blue.  The oneness... like a singularity."

"Okay... I am my wolf, my wolf is me... nothing has changed there."

Stiles shakes his head, "I think...maybe the other alpha spirits, those that are born into have like bag that contains their alpha-ness."

"Is that what it says?"

"Not literally, it says that the others do not have oneness, but they are with their blessing, and the word for blessing used here means literally a weapon bestowed by Ravi. There's no complicated meaning there. Top? As opposed to il'to." Stiles nodded, "Yeah... alphas that are born aren't stable in that they don't have to stay."

"Stay where?"

"In whatever lycan they've bonded with."

"As in they can move from body to body? Willfully?"

"Or be taken, yes."

Peter had taken Laura's alpha spirit and it had destroyed him from the inside...Would it do the same to Derek? He hadn't taken it, but something else? Something potentially worse? His wolf didn't seem bothered, content to just be near Stiles, curled up like a puppy in his chest and waiting for Derek to let him roam free and be nearer. 

"Like passing down?"

Stiles shrugged, "That too, but also like if a beta kills an alpha, the spirit passes... if the alpha spirit decides you are no longer worthy, it passes out of this world or into someone who is. At the same time, those that are made on this plane go to the other side as their alpha selves...maybe."

"So an alpha who is born is only an alpha on this plane, while an alpha that is made is always an alpha." 

"Yes... ish. Alphas that are born are given an alpha spark to carry around in the world. That spark is carried back with them, if they manage to keep it until death, or given to the next in line upon their death. These… alpha sparks as we call them can fizzle out over time. Alphas made on this plane... their wolves... kind of just are alpha sparks... maybe...or that they, when reincarnated, have the potential to become alphas again...something like that. It isn’t really clear."

"That's great."

"But alphas being made on this plane suggest that there's something really wrong and something really needs to be adjusted... by the magical alpha of this plane."

Stiles kept reading, the depictions were pretty gruesome about what could happen and while not images, the idea of shadow-steppers and soul-eaters were not pleasant.

"I'll keep looking for something to explain how it happened and maybe that'll give us a clue..."

"Is there any difference in power? Should I be worried?"

"Well if someone tried to take your alpha power, yours in particular, I assume they'd have to yank your wolf from your body, but that would kill you and it wouldn't do anything for their alphahood... because your alpha is your wolf, not like an additive. It was earned, not given."

"Because I forced myself to become an alpha, it's mine."

Stiles nodded, "Alpha for life you are."

Derek rolled his eyes at Stiles’s little grin, "Great... what about the power deal, anything I should be concerned about? Am I going to burst into flames?"

Stiles laughed at that, "Theories say...that alphas of this plane are capable of leading a pack of alphas..."

"Ravi, like my mom?"

He nodded, "Yeah. Kind of cool."

"Glad you're so excited about this."

There was something to be said, "What about blue eye omega-ness? Anything in there on that."

Stiles flipped a few pages, "Yes...it's also under the will of Ravi chapter... who knew? Apparently, becoming a blue eyed omega serves as some sort of ... pathway."

"Pathway?"

"Yep, see this diagram?" Stiles pushed the book towards Derek who moved to sit beside him instead of across. Their legs brushed, their shoulders and he felt the shift in his wolf, drawing itself up along the side nearest to Stiles.

"He seems a little restless," Stiles said softly, a slow blush creeping up his neck. 

Derek looked at Stiles in wonder. Most people couldn’t feel his wolf’s movement. He would have chocked it up to this strange bond they had, but something told him that it had more to do with Stiles’s developing spark.

"He is."

"Is it safe here?"

He nodded, "Yes."

"Well, why don't you let him run?"

Derek swallowed, he'd never really let his wolf run free with anyone near, it was too personal, but Stiles was right, if he didn't let him, Der'aq would go tearing through space causing a different sort of hell on his senses. He felt Stiles's eyes on him, watching with curiosity as he eased the gates open and felt his wolf spring from his chest, a little less immaterial than the time in the meeting room. His eyes glow red now, his coat is made of beautiful black and moonstone light of shifting patterns and runes that makes up his fur and cover the spirit’s body. Stiles stared in awe as Derek opened his eyes. 

"You can see him?" Derek asked.

"You’re beautiful..." Stiles says almost breathless, reaching out and Derek flinches, terrified, but Der'aq moves closer to get Stiles's hand on his head and Derek can feel the contentment as the other moves closer to nuzzle Stiles, scenting him. It's a pleasurably warm feeling in the pit of his stomach, heady and intoxicating. 

"You really do like me, huh?" Stiles asked. "Letting me see you and all..."

There's a growl of contentment before Der'aq wiggles and wedges his way onto Stiles's lap, curling up there, making himself smaller to rest there comfortably. He's warm, perfect for the chill in the huge library and Stiles grinned, stroking the wolf absently. 

"You must really like me, you should tell Derek that I'm awesome."

Derek does his best not let it show what Stiles's hands on Der'aq is doing to him, but it's hard. At once comforting and enticing, sexy and cute and it could drive him crazy.

"You were saying," he says roughly. 

"Uh...right, the glyph... it's what the lycan triskele is based on I think."

The symbol of paws in a circle, all directed outward. He'd seen it before a long time ago.

"The three brothers, the three spirits... three."

He nodded, "Three stages of being a lycan, all linked together, existing together, always in flux. Betas... crave pack, community and someone to lead them into... glory essentially...Omegas crave freedom and ... wanting to lead themselves... Blue eyed omegas have no desire for pack... or rather they have a desire for a type of pack that doesn't exist in their world...the eyes of Jila is what they're called."

"Jila,” Derek asked turning the name over in his head. “Like the story?"

Stiles nodded, "Like the story, the wolf in love with the moon. The theory is that Jila was so out of touch with those around him that his eyes turned blue... the color of sorrow and trance."

Derek knew the story, he also knew the feeling. The eyes of Jila... he could understand that. The kind of sorrow that robbed you of your mind and held you just about the realm of reality, just outside anything before throwing you to the ground over and over again. The kind of sorrow that’s more addicting than runs on a full moon night.

"Yes..."

"So they won't take any other pack, but they want community greatly and apparently the eyes of Jila were taken to be a sign of borderline madness...but they see the dangers of... pack and bonds that can hurt."

"Yes..."

Stiles feels the pain in his voice that time, the way Der'aq whines a little and curls in tighter to himself, wiggling to be closer to Stiles. He stroked the shimmering figure in his lap and breathed. 

"I... I can stop."

"No,”Derek shook his head. “Go on. I need to know."

"Alphas see both... they have a need for pack , a need for freedom, and a need to be without boundaries... Ravi'alto...the ones blessed by Ravi are like the synergistic point between the three: you lead; you strive to make your bonds strong enough to support but not strangle. It also seems like instead of overwriting your instincts, they sort of coagulate. Seems like Ravi’alto are a different kind of alpha altogether."

Derek looked at the center space between the three paws, "I could choose any direction, or stay right there?"

"Yeah."

"Apparently, you're very much dedicated... to making ravi as close to Ravi as possible."

"Ravi?"

"Ravi here meaning the Great pack, the one beyond this world." Derek hummed, "You have a minor god complex."

"Thanks,” Derek glowered.

"You're welcome... It's a good one. Not the I am god and you will listen to me or I will kill you sort of way, but the I follow the path of Ravi honestly and would lead you down that path.... a true disciple of Ravi."

Derek nodded, shuddering at the pass of Stiles’s hand over Der’aq, "Alright...I think that's enough for the day..."

Stiles closed the book a little saddened that it had to end but glad for the reprieve. Reading ancient languages like lycan required a different sort of engagement. He remembered the first time he read how long he'd slept after a single sentence. Translating it was beginning to have that same effect.

He sat back with a sigh as he continued to pet Der'aq, watching and feeling the definition of the spiritual form flicker with silver light and darkness. He really was beautiful.

"So... does your family know that you're rebuilding the Hale House? And how exactly do you have enough money to do so?"

Derek smiled at that, "No, I'm keeping it a secret... until Christmas."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

"Christmas? The house is going to be your Christmas gift? Isn't there like a dollar amount limit you're allowed to spend on people for Christmas?"

Derek laughed, "No, there isn't...It's more like a revival not so much a Christmas gift... and a birthday present to myself."

"Your birthday is Christmas?"

"Christmas Eve actually at midnight heading into Christmas day."

"I hate you, I hope they only give you one gift and say it counts for both."

Derek snorted, if only. They all insisted on two sets of gifts, always... he remembered the piles of gifts he had to open when he got back from his hellish venture with Kate. He'd had to give most of it away, but it was warming to know that they still thought of him when he was away.

"They never do, we believe in gifts... lots and lots of gifts."

"How come no one knew that you were living in the burnt out ruins of your house?"

"The Fire... took a lot out of us... out of the Pack... out of the family...out of the lycan community..."

Stiles waited just a moment, "Out of you?"

"Yeah...It's been almost seven years and I think it's time we all become Ravi again."

Family, pack... together...Stiles got images of full moon runs and baby showers, love and laughter and the deep longing climbing its way into him from Der'aq in his lap and Derek so utterly open... That was what it was like to let your wolf spirit out and about... It was to be completely open. Stiles could feel the depth of Derek’s longing and determination as if it were his own.

"God you sound like an Alpha... how long have you been planning this?"

"Since I reentered the alliance."

"Yeah... I'm going to agree with your uncle and say you being an alpha is just a foregone conclusion."

"Thanks."

"You’re welcome."

They stayed there amongst the books and quiet with Stiles stroking Der'aq and Derek feeling more and more content as time passed. Eventually, Derek called Der'aq back and led them back through the library.

"Can you imagine the sort of knowledge that's down here?" Stiles asked watching the runes go by on the wall.

"I can."

"Not just for lycans as the Hale family vault holds a lot more than Hale secrets."

Derek stops and looks at him, "Why do you say that?"

Stiles points to the ruins above them, "That one says Hale, Wind, Marcus... that symbol there is the symbol of the three brothers."

He looks up and then to Stiles, "You... can see that?"

Stiles nodded, "Yeah. They're everywhere... and they say that the three brothers were three different kinds of shifters, or at least their descendants became three types. It's why the spirit languages are so similar."

"Would you..."Derek started. Stiles waited and smiled at Derek’s sigh. "Would you teach me to read it?"

Stiles nodded, "Of course I would."

"Will you?"

"If you want," Stiles said. "I will say that Druid and Spark compounds have the force and apathy to translate the texts for real use...Use that may help that hole in the shifter community."

Derek swallowed and nodded, "We can start whenever you want."

They go to the Vault every day they have off after Derek is free from therapy. He drops Amy off at Liam's condo, who is oddly there more often than not, and heads to pick Stiles up. Stiles starts him off with the alphabet. Contrary to Stiles's promise, he doesn't bother to take Derek apartment shopping if only because the other doesn't seem to be interested in any other place and the thought of leaving Derek to sleep in a place by himself, no matter how big or how large, after just one day in the hell that was Jefferson gives him the creeps. Besides he's feeling a little packish and can see the change in Derek's mood while he's staying with Stiles.

Not to mention the man can cook. Stiles could cook, but having someone who could cook better than he could was practically a god send. He'd slept better than he had in years with Derek's warmth wrapped around him and slowly the years of pain and anguish melted away until Scott said something.

"You two are looking chipper. Solved a case?"

Derek smiled at him and Scott went silent. It was dazzling and soon Derek realized what was causing the odd silence.

"What?"

"You're... smiling..."

Derek's eyebrows furrowed, "I've never seen you smile before."

Derek blinked looking away from Scott trying to think clearly.

Weeks pass this way and before they realize it's fall and getting colder. Stiles and Derek are lazing around his apartment, practicing lycan from a few images of text from the museum. Der'aq is lounging in Stiles's lap comforted by the constant stroking, the image is projected on the wall before them and it'll be the first time that Derek will read it on his own. He'll never amidst that Stiles stroking Der'aq is making him more relaxed by the second.

"Ready?"

"No."

"I believe in you."

Derek snorted and looked forward and breathed, while Stiles just relaxed letting the words float over his senses. He was still a little hesitant, but he was accurate, his voice getting stronger as he kept reading. The words taking form differently than his current Lycan. 

It's a heady feeling and Stiles is grinning at him, it's a sweet and open smile and it makes his heart jump. Suddenly, he's drawn forward to those soft looking lips that are calling him and his mouth slants over Stiles's like it was meant to happen. A part of him is flailing, panicked, but he's just too open and Der'aq is too comfortable in Stiles's arms to resist it a second later. The ancient lycan, the meanings, the world that's growing too fast inside his brain and the heady feeling of those words in the core of him is too much and he just wants... 

He draws back staring at Stiles in horror who looks surprised, a little breathless and flushed.

"Derek..."

He stood, startled, and Der'aq practically yelped as he pulled him back in. There are memories of Paige, that girl he'd loved, who'd died... of Kate...of pain and emptiness and he's shaking his head, backing away from Stiles, for this warm content feeling. He doesn’t deserve this, he can’t have this...lest Stiles turn to just another phantom...

"Derek?"

"I... I'm sorry. I shouldn't have... this isn't... I can't..."

Derek turns quickly escaping the apartment so fast that Stiles can barely register he's leaving before he's up and running after him. 

"Derek, wait!"

Derek hears him but he doesn't turn back, no matter how Der'aq growls and claws at him from the inside to turn back to be with Stiles, to turn back and be honest. It's too much and he runs straight to his car, to tear away from the building hearing Stiles's footsteps rushing down the stairs after him, barefoot. 

"I can't!" he yells at his reflection in the mirror as he pulls up at Liam's condo and heaves for breath, shaking at the rising chill.

It's all welling up too fast for Derek to catch his breath and he gets out of the car. His keys in his pocket, stumbling through the haze.  he can't drive, it isn't safe, but he can walk and stumble as Der'aq roars and strains against him.

"Please," he breathed, wrapping his arms around himself. "Please just... wait..."

But he knows Der'aq will not listen to him and he's pissed. Stiles had been willing, wanting, he smelled arousal on the other their sparring sessions.

"Derek?" Liam asked coming up behind him as he leans on the building. "What's..."

Derek falls forward, panting, trembling in a cold sweat. Liam gets to his side, "Derek! Derek what happened?! Derek!"

He grabs him, hauling him into Derek's car and driving them to the Moonlit Revival and hauls him into Julia's office for answers. 

"Julia! Julia please!" Liam is yelling and she comes to help him and lay Derek, shaking, going into a seizure out on the table.

"Derek? Derek what happened?"

"Stiles," he says weakly. "Stiles... can't... sorry... won't... can't... scared..."

Liam frowns, Stiles? Wasn't that the name of his partner? Julia gives him an injection that eases the shaking, but his body temperature is getting colder heading towards human levels. 

"This isn't good, god damn it Derek what happened?"

He didn't wake up until the next day, he was alone, swaddled in blankets that smelled like the twins and Liam and Amy... pack.

Der'aq whined and rolled in his chest, angry and demanding Stiles. Then he felt the surge through him. His body moving no matter how hard he fought. Der'aq's claws digging into his spine, taking control. 

Before he can voice a protest, or fully get his bearings, he's stumbling through the city, barely keeping his stomach down and so damn cold. He can feel Der'aq tugging, being pulled away from him, out of him, digging his claws in and determined to tear Derek's spine out before leaving him. Determined, not to be separated from him. It warmed him even as Der’aq was marching him into the realm of the unknown.

Stiles's lips still tingle and he hopes he can get some sort of answer from Derek today. He's cut his hair again and that's when a familiar figure stumbles out into the middle of the street, one hand up and Stiles slams on the brakes, stopping the jeep just before impact and just as Derek's legs finally give out on him and he's on the ground, wheezing reaching. 

Stiles gets out and rounds the jeep to see him.

"Derek?"

His eyes are glowing red, but they're dazed and hopeless, reaching out for him desperately.

He can't see anything but he knows it's Stiles the way Der'aq whins in his chest and makes him reach out.

"Stiles," he forces out as his vision clears and Stiles appears to him

Stiles, in his plaid gray shirt and buzz cut looks down at Derek on the ground in broad daylight. He knew the tests had been harsh, he knew that Derek had suffered greatly, he hadn’t realized how much as the other was so hell bent on keeping Stiles out of his emotional space except when Der'aq was out and he couldn't help himself. Derek’s head struggles to look up and Stiles feels sick. He’s pale and his eyes are that pained olive color as he looks at him. He’s sure that the other’s body temperature had dropped considerably, as he looks about on the edge of shaking with cold sweats.

“Derek, what happened…?”

“Stiles—“ he breaks off for a moment. Whether hesitance or pain, Stiles can’t tell but the other sucks in deep, heaving breaths as if trying to breath around something stuck in his chest. He could be having a lycan heart attack for all Stiles—

“I love you.”

Their eyes meet and Derek looked painfully open, painfully vulnerable. His guard is down from the pain, down from the shock and Stiles realizes at last that he’s going into spiritual withdrawal. His wolf is pissed off with him and receding into the spiritual realm as it is just too tortured in Derek’s body. Stiles’s jaw trembles a little sliding closer. 

Love is an odd word for lycans, lycans loved pack and their significant others...lycans loved a lot, but for someone like Derek to say that to him meant that it was agonizingly true and he was terrified… Der’aq was terrified and that wasn’t good.

Derek flinch at Stiles’s touch, but didn’t move as Stiles moved closer, kneeling over him to pull his head to his chest and stroke his hair gently.”

“Uil,” he whispered. “Uil, astad nue. Aq’a uira astad…”

Derek trembled, too exhausted to do much else but let Stiles hold him. Der’aq seemed to ease, dragging his way back into Derek’s body at Stiles calming whispers, pressing up against Stiles as Stiles rocked him gently and stroked his hair.

“Uil,” he whispered. “Uil.”

Stiles felt a heady warmth when Derek finally got his arms around him. A steady, hazy feeling like a warm blanket being placed over you as you shiver in your sleep. There’s comfort and peace and Stiles breathes, his mind running over the possibilities. Obviously spiritual withdrawl, but what else? What exactly had done it? If he’d survived Kate’s abuse… survived the Hale Fire… what could have--

The kiss, he thought and knew his heart rate spiked.

“I’m sorry,” Derek murmured. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Stiles had an idea, it made sense… lycan spirits don’t show themselves to anyone… especially not in that form. The color and patterning of the spirit was so sacred that pack members rarely saw it.Der’aq recognized him as more than pack… as a potential mate and was showing him how much Derek really trusted him. As much as it thrilled Stiles, it would do no good to jump in with Derek who’d obviously been terrified of the idea of his wolf pursuing an obvious courting and the idea of falling in love.

“Uil, Der’aq… Derek...Uil.”

Derek swallowed but said nothing and the stayed there for a long time before Stiles managed to get him off the ground and into his jeep. Derek captured his hand.

“I’ve… been dreaming about you for weeks,” Derek said after a moment. “I didn’t realize… what that would mean until... “

“Yesterday?”

Derek nodded, “I didn’t realize how attached Der’aq was to you…”

Stiles nodded, squeezing his hand, “Good thing I’m not going anywhere then, isn’t it?”

He nodded slowly and breathed deeply, “I’ll take you back to get some rest… we can talk later?”

Derek nodded slowly and felt the car start up again as Stiles drove the jeep back towards his own apartment. He half hauled Derek up the stairs and put him in his bed, covering him and watched in amazement as Der’aq slipped out and collapsed on Stiles’s side of the bed. Both of them nuzzling into the sheets and sinking into the comfort of their mingled scents.

His heart wanted to crawl into bed with him… but his head knew that was a bad idea. One, the reaction obviously said that Derek himself wasn’t completely on board with anything romantic with Stiles. Two, even if he was they hadn’t talked about it at all… and Three, fraternizing between partners was…. well, no one really cared, but it could cause trouble depending on what Stiles’s deal was. There was too much smoke waiting to clear between Derek’s alpha status and the lycan elders… and the fact that the alliance still didn’t know… not really anyway… 

Stiles shook his head, whatever was going on would have to wait until they were both standing on solid ground again, when they could both think clearly. He spent the night on the couch dreaming of Derek holding him and woke up in bed with Derek wishing he could feel guilty.


	15. In His Face.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek, Christmas, Stiles-- Hale Family Feels

They don’t talk about the kiss, about the L word or any of that the next day. It’s all the same as before with the addition of tight lipped smiles. With the fall holiday coming up, there’s the question of what to do with the few days he has off. Scott and Kira are planning a trip to Las Vegas and everyone else he knows is busy… with the exception of Derek.

_ Just suck it up, Stilinski. Worrying about it going to cause problems later... _

In all fairness, they had to talk about it sometime and since he knew Derek had been released from therapy that day, he drove to the Hale Estate and climbed out. The house was coming along nicely. No longer dusty ruins but a strong steel frame. Bricks were being laid out, walls were being put up and people were everywhere. There was an odd heat to the air today that made shorts and a t-shirt the best option. 

“Derek, catch!”

Stiles looked over to the yellow hard hat topping a half-naked man and gawked, he shouldn’t have seen him half naked and sweaty… He really shouldn’t have considering their predicament, but he walked forward as Derek turned his attention on him and started towards him.

There’s a knowing feral look in his eyes as they stopped and somehow Stiles can’t stop staring at the expanse of his chest. 

“Hi.”

Stiles smiled through the blush burning at his cheeks, forcing himself to meet those eyes, “Hi… uhm… things look like their moving along.”

“They are… we’re ahead of schedule.”

“Need a hand?”

Derek smiled, “Yeah...we’re out someone who knows something extensive about magic…with magic seals to put down before we close all the walls.”

Stiles grinned, “Lucky for you, I can do that.”

He followed Derek to the site and instantly he’s introduced to the small battalion of shifter men and women. 

“Boyd,” the tall and broad one said. “You’re Derek’s partner, aren’t you?”

Stiles nodded and shook his hand, “Yeah… Nice to meet you--Stiles.”

“I’m Erica and you are adorable.”

The blonde woman, thrusting her hand forward and grinning is not what he expected, but he shook her hand anyway.

“Derek, Erica and I go way back to the days in the academy.”

“You’re… agents too?”

Erica shook his head,“Not anymore, we got out after the first two years… after what happened to Derek, we couldn’t deal with and got nice sensible jobs.”

Somehow, he knew that Erica wasn’t talking about construction work. It’s Isaac, another one of Derek’s old classmates, that takes him through the house and shows him the magic blueprint they had on hand. Stiles frowned and told him the alignment would be all off and with the number of lycans that would be in the house, the number of shifter spirits, the bonds would break and cause more harm than good.

Of course, Isaac only looked at him as if he were speaking another language and Stiles winced.

“Let’s try it this way…” Stiles said, grabbing a pencil. “Add a bit of lycan magic so the house eases and harmonizes with the inhabitants… a little druid, and a bit of spark to add an extra layer of protection and viola...Defended against any threat known in the universe. The ground beneath it will disintegrate before the house crumbles.”

Derek can only pick out a few glyphs and the shifter symbols, but he trusts Stiles and knows more than anything that the other knows what he’s talking about if the maelstrom of information that roared through his ears for just a few moments was anything to go by.

“It’s pretty,” Erica said looking at the plans. “I have no idea what any of it means.”

“It’s like a super sanction a from the universe.” Stiles said, taking the scroll. “What were you planning on marking it with?”

Derek shrugged, “Hadn’t figured anything out, thought ink would do.”

Stiles snorted and shook his head, “I’ll be back.”

He grabs his bag from the jeep and carries it towards the bench where the bowl would be. He wraps his left wrist up with bandage before mixing things together and demanding a drop of Derek’s blood.

“Why mine?”

“Alpha, Hale, original… spirits from the cemetery, I could go on.”

Derek gave in not even flinching at the slice Stiles made across his palm before going back to mixing, then there’s ink being added, water and Stiles sets the bowl down before taking out his spark gun.

“You’re off duty and you carry that around?”

“It’s the only one I carry around with me always.”

He dipped the gun’s muzzle into the liquid and waits for the liquid to be absorbed.

“What the hell is that?” Isaac asked.

“Do we need to move?” Erica asked.

Stiles shook his head and headed to stand in front of the House, “No need.”

He lifted his arms and aimed for the highest point, the top of the chimney and the top of the roof’s frame before taking a deep breath and pulling on Derek’s tether, sinking into his memories, the blueprints of the house and his knowledge of the territory.

The magic swirled, creating a gust of wind as a large magic circle began to grow and oscillate around Stiles’s hands, growing larger and larger as he pulled more memories and fed them into the feeling of happiness, of warmth and love and pack. He closed his eyes and reached out with Derek’s memories to the edges of the territory, feeling the great presence of the sunken library beneath their feet, the earth and trees filling his senses.

Derek watched Stiles’s eyes go from their hazel to a glowing gold and shook his head. There was no way that Stiles wasn’t a spark, but what the reason for Stiles’s avoidance of the topic and even the possibility of it was he didn’t have the faintest idea.

_ A’Ravi.  _ _ δ’a il toi nava…A’Ravi.... A’zilδo δoi nava |'pella _

Derek could feel the words and feelings churning in the air, as did they all turning to watch the magic’s circle grow larger and larger until Stiles set his stance and pulled the trigger launching the spell into the air and watched it open up to a projection of the Hale Estate and the surrounding lands, including the library and the floors below. Then, it crashed down and settled, doing nothing more than causing a slight breeze and every Lycan in the area to swallow and bask in the warm, loving embrace of the spell that flew along the ground and out into the distance.

“It feels like Christmas…” Erica said, curling into Boyd’s side. “And marshmallows.”

Boyd chuckled at that and kissed the top of her head as Stiles’s eyes fluttered and the glow dimmed. Stiles tucked his gun back into its holster and took a deep breath. He could hear the howling of wolves and other shifters buried on the Hale property on the wind and the whispers of human voices, for just a moment he could hear Ravi-On’s voice, that amalgamation of voices and hands passing over his skin, scenting him. His wrists and it was all so hazy.

He opened his eyes finally, and looks over the group who are talking about the runes and symbols appearing on the structure, on the invisible part of the walls being put up, beneath the tile and wood floors. Derek walked through the ground floor and felt the magic throughout the entire house, then on the grounds, all the way to the border.

“That’s amazing,” he said when he came back. “The whole Estate?”

He nodded, “No sense in only protecting the house. Pack should feel safe within their territory… the safest.”

Derek nodded and Stiles breathed, “Can we talk?”

Derek nodded slowly, taking off his hard hat and shrugging on a shirt to lead him into the woods and out of earshot from the others. 

“So…” Stiles started. “This… Der’aq really likes me….”

Derek looked at him with a flat look and stopped turning to him, “Yes.”

Stiles worries his lip, looking at Derek whose eyes are flickering the deepest green and the brightest gold, Stiles has learned that means he’s about to shift partially. .. just before the wolf full showed itself. 

“Well that means we’re at least--”

“Stiles,” Derek cut in, meeting his eyes. “Just… spit it out.”

Stiles swallowed looking at Derek before taking a deep steadying breath, “Why?”

Derek licked his lips, pausing to find words, a reason that Der’aq could give him, but the answer ended up coming from a part of him he hadn’t known existed.

"I... I keep trying to think of you as a friend,” Derek said. “But I don't see you that way... I love you."

Stiles blinked and Derek ran his hand through his hair, “I’m not asking you to say anything Stiles…”

“Are you okay?” he asked softly. “You… weren’t in a good place...before.”

Derek nodded, “Der’aq is stubborn.”

He nodded, “I can see that. You found me… even like that.”

Derek nodded.

“I’m…” he started and shook his head thinking of something else. “No, that’s not right. In light of everything… I think that there’s a lot of other things we have to figure out…”

Derek nodded slowly and turned to continue to walk as if it would be easier to hear the rejection if he was moving. Stiles sprinted ahead of him, cutting him off. 

“This isn’t a rejection,” he said quickly, stopping Derek from walking, his hands flat on his chest. “It isn’t, Derek.”

Derek’s eyes were still flickering, his heart thudding against his chest and Stiles could feel the tight ball of nerves in his gut that weren’t his. Derek was terrified, scared even. Der’aq pressed against his hands rubbing desperately, whimpering, trembling. 

_ Please… _

“I’m just unsure of… what you mean… when you tell me you love me… You said I was pack… but...”

Derek blinked, his heart skipped and Der’aq seemed to growl low ready to charge and leap free. Why couldn’t he understand? He was…

Not a spark yet, Derek remembered. Or at least not aware of his spark yet. Though Stiles had a lot of the faculties, he was not officially a spark and there was something personally holding him back from owning that fact...He took a deep breath and stepped forward, catching Stiles’s hands in his until the other walked backwards into the nearest tree, pinned between Derek and the tree. Tension coiled and exploded up and through his body. Everything him so tense and moments from pouncing, pushing Stiles down to the ground and claiming him. Thoroughly, just short of violent, but desperate and maddened.

Stiles swallowed and did his best to keep himself constant as the images rushed into him through the tether, but as Derek’s eyes flickered down his form and the fantasy became a little more than just raw fucking, but sensual and slow, deliberately. He could practically feel Derek’s tongue on his skin, making hot wet runes on his skin: Love, Forever, Der’aq.

“Clear enough?” Derek asked roughly, half growling at him. “Or do you need more?”

“No… think I’m good. Crystal, transparent even…”

Derek stepped back, “I’m not asking you for anything.”

“Which is why you almost turned yourself human after your little freak out.”

Derek growled at him, “You don’t get to say that.”

“I’m not the one that freaked out,” Stiles said. “I know you’re scared, but--”

“I’m not scared,” he growled at Stiles and began marching away, frustrated and tense. Stiles jogged after him.

“Then why are you walking away from me?”

“ _ Ziu’a, _ ” Derek growled turning, but Stiles wouldn’t be thwarted, stepping in front of him, cutting him off. “ _ Stiles… _ ” 

“You can’t just kiss me and run away like that. You can’t just force all of that in my head and expect me to just let it go when you say you’re not asking for anything. Are you avoiding me or yourself?”

“Stiles!”

“Are you afraid that I’ll be like Kate?”

He glared.

“Are you afraid that you won’t have any control?”

Derek growled, shifting so fast that Stiles barely registered what happened before his legs were taking off after the wolf tearing through the tree. 

“ _ Oδr’ nue! Der’aq! Efilδe… A’astad _ _!”  _ he yelled chasing after him, finding himself catching up, apparently Der’aq was more than on board with getting Derek to talk to him.

“ Top a’...efil _ δe...voce-is top aq. efilδe! _ _ ” _

Derek didn’t slow down, tearing through the woods. Stiles could feel his legs burning, but it was distant and almost peripheral. All that running away from Scott had finally come in handy. And if he pushed a little harder… a little--

He leapt and skidded across the rocks, tumbling over Derek who he pulled up against him stubbornly as they skidded to a halt and Stiles cried out at the burning feeling. Derek struggled, but Stiles locked his body around the writhing near-burning hot body in his arms. Though he struggled, it was not with the intent of harming him, nor was there an accidental prick of his claws or teeth. Derek was gentle, careful.

“It’s okay,” he said gently. “Uil, Derek. Uil… I won’t hurt you, please… just calm down.”

There were quick angry words coming through his mind, Kate’s words in her journal, words recorded for him, played to him in his sleep buried too deep in his subconcious to be comfortable. Words that Der’aq had hidden from him all this time. 

_ Ashes to ashes. You should have heard the way they screamed Derek… It would have chilled your blood.  _

He felt sick but he held on until the memories washed over him completely and he felt the tears burning down his face, the sobbing in his chest, the depth of sorrow and regret and guilt.

“It wasn’t your fault, Derek.” He said, stroking him even as he struggled and growled. “It isn’t your fault. She drugged you… she tricked you. It isn’t your fault. You were barely fifteen… It isn’t your fault.”

When the struggling died down to soft panting in his arms, Stiles didn’t let go, but held him gently, stroking his fur. 

“It’s not your fault… you couldn’t know. It’s no one’s fault but hers… and now she’s dead. She’s gone and she can’t hurt you or anyone you love anymore… She’s gone, Derek…”

Derek whined low, a sorrowful whine and Stiles could feel them both curled into themselves in mourning. Stiles didn’t move stroking his fur and breathing deeply. Yes, his family was gone and torn apart… they were lost without direction and it was all too much for him--his alpha senses were going crazy with it all. Stiles could feel it… He could also feel the presences in the trees, the spirits of the Hale pack making their way towards them, sensing Derek’s distress. He wondered if Derek always felt their presence when he’d slept in the ruins of the house, if even that small, haunting comfort had been enough to keep him there, keep him sane to a degree.

A pitiful howl came from Derek and slowly he began to shift back, whining in his chest and his eyes filled with red light, burying his face in Stiles’s chest, tears soaking into his shirt as Stiles breathed and stroked his hair.  

They stay that way for a long time before Derek is calm again and Der’aq has eased back. Now more lycan than wolf, Derek swallowed and sat up slowly, or at least he tried to. Stiles’s arms remained locked around him and he breathed.

“Not a rejection, you hear me?”

Derek nodded silently.

“Can I… be honest with you?”

Derek nodded.

“You probably don’t know this because my brain is a raging maelstrom all the time and would really do you little good, but… I’ve never… uhm…”

“Dated a lycan?”

“Dated at all,” Stiles corrected, his cheeks burning. “Despite my very awkward efforts.”

Derek didn’t have to look at him to know that he was telling the truth. His heart was fast but there was no blip of a lie. Stiles had never been with anyone, which could explain some of his hesitance to take Derek’s admission of love as he did.

“And you’re very cuddly for someone that doesn’t like to be touched.”

Derek growled at him and earned Stiles’s laugh, “Can’t scare me now, sourwolf. I know you too well.”

Derek swallowed at that.

“I’m not going to try and take over your mind, you know that don’t you?”

Derek nodded, “You can barely control your own, what the hell would you do with mine?”

Stiles huffed and flicked his naked shoulder, “Jerk.”

Derek smiled, “So what now? That you’ve seen me at my absolute worst… no thanks to my wolf.”

Stiles smiled, “Der’aq is on your side… even when you don’t think so.”

Derek nodded, he knew that. He didn’t want to leave, digging his claws into Derek’s motor control to make him go to Stiles as quickly as possible. Der’aq had grown attached to Derek in the long years they’d been together. Shielding him from a vast majority of Kate’s abuse, taking over when Derek was just too steeped in grief to do anything. It had been the threat to Der’aq… the promise to rip him from him, contain him, and sell him off that had broken Derek’s haze of pain and abuse… it had been that alone that made him rage out, taking control and prepared to kill Kate if it meant freedom...She’d taken his pride, his dignity… he didn’t know that she’d taken his family and everything he called familiar away from him as well… but the thought of her taking Der’aq and subjecting him to whatever horror the poachers had dreamed up had been the last thing he could take.

“What now?”

“Now…?” Stiles started. “I admit that I at the very least like you as a person… and if that means...dating you… I’m okay with that. Things are a little too crazy for… much more than that…”

Derek nodded and refused to look at him--

“On one condition.”

Derek glanced up at him, “And that would be?”

“No more running.” Stiles said. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, but ypu don’t get to run away every time things get scary. At least give me some sort of explanation before you do… please?”

Derek swallowed and nodded, “I can try.”

Stiles smiled and kissed the top of his head, “That’s all I’m asking.”

Derek cleared his throat and shifted to his wolf form and Stiles groaned. Knowing at the very least that meant that Derek either didn’t want Stiles to know that he blushed and, or, didn’t want to have to verbally contribute to the conversation any longer.

“You’re huge! That’s not fair. You’re not supposed to weigh more than me as a wolf too!”

Derek snorted and lead the way back to where his clothes had landed in his hasty escape.

“I hope there were ants…”

Derek snorted again and when they arrived, Stiles only laughed as his pants had landed in an ant pile.

“Karma!” Stiles declared. Derek only picked his clothes up in his mouth and dragged them into the nearby stream, shifting and getting dressed in the waist high water before walking out and grabbing his shoes.

“Now you’re--ah!”

Derek shook himself and water flew everywhere, officially soaking Stiles. Despite his grumbling, Derek was adorable with his hair still wet and sticking up everywhere. He smoothed a hand through it and reached out a hand. 

“Would you?” Derek asked.

Stiles took his hand and was at least partially amazed at the light in Derek’s eyes as he laced their fingers together and walked forward. Stiles fell into step beside him and felt his heart fluttering.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah… just… feels like I’m in some old movie and we’re going steady or something.”

Derek laughed, “You’ve never been with anyone so… I figured… slow was the way to go... and I’m a bit out of practice.”

Stiles nodded and before he realizes it, they’re back at the construction site and more than just a few walls have gone up. It’s late and the crew is gone. They slide into Stiles’s jeep as Derek caught a ride with Boyd earlier. Stiles started up the engine.

“I can stay with my uncle… if it’s awkward for you.”

Stiles snorted with a laugh, “You can’t make me feel awkward. We’ve been sharing a bed for weeks, it’ll be fine. Besides… it’s nice having you both around.”

Derek grinned at him and it was slow and warm and made Stiles blush. Maybe this could get awkward… maybe… 

Stiles found that he'd been wrong and he just existed in a pool of awkwardness. For one, Derek always made him breakfast... lunch... dinner... hell if Derek had the time to make chocolate ice cream he was sure that he would. It was nice to have someone around and nice to have someone cooking for him, but it was the rest that made it awkward. The subtle touches, the glances, the lingering stares and the smile... It had rocked him to the core every time. 

Sharing a bed with Derek became less comfortable and more difficult to keep himself from thinking about all the images in the forest. Yes, lycans liked to cuddle with the things they loved, the people they cared about, but Derek was a full grown man and Stiles had the hormone levels of a teenager... It was wreaking havoc on him. 

_ Ravi, help me... _ he prayed nearly every night Derek pulled him closer, spooning him and pressing the full length of himself against him.

Doing their job was oddly not complicated nor made any more difficult. If anything it was easier, because training gave Derek an excuse to touch Stiles and through that contact, Stiles could feel Der'aq rubbing up against him and sharing secret thoughts that he was sure Derek didn't want shared... like the fact that Derek actually thought about Stiles a lot and not just in a sexual way, but in every way possible. Cuddled together watching movies, in front of a Christmas tree… it wasn't just sex, but love and care... and pack.

"Stiles?"

He turned to see Derek holding his phone behind him, "Yeah..."

"You okay? You’re heart's beating like a jackhammer."

He nodded, "Yeah, just thinking...What's up?"

"Thinking about--"

Stiles's phone rang and he picked it up.

"Stilinski--"

“ _ Kite Rider to Nogitsune, sending position, S.O.S. ASAP-- son of a bitch!” _ that had been enough to get Stiles in the jeep and Derek in with him to head towards the warehouses where their GPS said they were. Derek heard them, leaping out of the Jeep as Stiles skidded it to a halt and rounded the front of it. His Alliance gun lifted and trained on the shadows while Derek had already rushed forward. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to use his spark gun. 

“Scott!? Kira!?”

Derek told him a lycan apothegm during their last session, it was apparently a part of the cult of Ravi: you only learned yourself when you faced what you feared most. He’d also said that the self is at once found and created over a lifetime, but Scott hadn’t known that when Derek was chasing him through the woods, or when he was running through the woods all fur and instinct, but he knew it now. He’d told Kira to run ahead as he held off as many as he could. She only made it a few steps before being attacked and they both prayed that the message they’d managed to send to Derek and Stiles’s phones made it. They were surrounded and outnumbered, the Alliance had really screwed them over this time. Sending them to a supposedly  _ abandoned  _ warehouse compound to investigate a haunting only to find a den of supernaturals creatures that weren’t happy about being found.

Kira swung her sword in a wide arch as Scott lifted his gun to fire as many rounds as he could. They ran, climbing up in an attempt to escape the never ending tide of spirits, creatures, and crazed shifters.

“We aren’t going to die like this,” Kira said slicing through another spirit. “We aren’t.”

“No,” Scott said. “We aren’t.”

“ What the hell was the Alliance thinking sending us here?”

Scott shook his head, he couldn't know but when he heard the roar and felt it in his spirit, he had an idea. Derek was there, his eyes glowing red through the darkness and focused on the crowd, Stiles beside him, lifting his gun to the crowd. 

"Uil," Derek growled. "Ziu."

Scott felt the pull and took Kira's hand, climbing down and walking towards the pair as the group of shifters fell in line and the spirits seemed to calm. Stiles waited until they were behind them before lowering the gun. 

"You two alright?"

"Yeah... We're alright."

Stiles nodded. 

" _ Efilδe _ , " Derek asked. “ _ Ataslu lo? _ ”

" Stefn... voce... "

Derek frowned and Stiles tilted his head. A voice could mean anything, but to summon so many spirits, all and incite them to rage, meant that there was something ultimately troubling about this place. Stiles felt something watching them, a presence as if out of the corner of his eyes.

"What exactly did the alliance say was here?"

"They didn't, just said there was something weird going on... energy spikes."

"Neither one of you are mages or druids..."

"I know that."

_ Derek... I think this may be a trap _ , Stiles thought and Derek nodded slowly.

Stiles almost smiled at the fact that Derek didn’t seem to tense or wince in pain when he shared this thought. Perhaps Stiles was getting better at filtering himself after all. Stiles slid his normal gun into its holster and pulled out his spark gun. Most of the force just thought that he had two guns to go along with his Melee class, but Scott knew that the spark gun was one Stiles didn't use unless absolutely necessary. 

Scott stepped back. 

"Derek, talk with them. Kira sword out and get ready to run... Scott come with me."

Scott nodded as Kira drew her sword again and Derek continued to speak calmly to them, using the alpha edge to get answers. Scott followed Stiles towards the containers guided by some sense outside himself. 

"How did Derek do that?"

"I told you," he said. "He became an alpha... when I was taken by that psycho who was experimenting with blood palettes."

Scott winced, "We still haven't found him."

"Of course not, no one will let me touch the case either to figure out those glyphs and no one likes to ask the druids for help with anything..."

Not to mention, no one knew how to ask the sparks for anything. Stiles followed his senses, letting the information Derek got sink into his unconcious when he heard it. A soft whimpering, a child's crying who'd cried for too long with no one to hear them. He felt it at the core of himself.

"Scott, do you hear that?"

Scott shook his head and followed Stiles towards a container, no more special than any other, number 333 and hung back as Stiles opened it. Stiles felt sick, pulling off his jacket and entering the container.

The baby was naked, laid out helpless lessly with runes scared into her fragile skin. The baby had to be shifter, the ruins were demonic in nature and as he approached he could feel something else.

_ Let me in! _

"Scott run!"

The doors slammed shut and the entire container lit up with magic seals and runes as Stiles turned and the handle slipped from Scott’s grip.

Derek turned feeling the spike of fear. Scott's running footsteps didn't help. Where was Stiles?

"I can't get it open! The container closed and Stiles is stuck in side.

Derek took off following the scent of Stiles towards the container and pulling, even as it burned his hands: wolfsbane and magic too powerful for him and Scott to overcome. 

"Call for more backup, tell them an officer's been taken."

Scott shook his head, "Phone's dead... the radio was broken.. We barely got to you guys."

Derek could hear Stiles screaming inside and fumbled for his phone, shoving it into Scott’s hands and banging on the door of the container.

"Stiles! Stiles! Just hold on! I'm coming, I swear!"

Scott's stomach turned as Derek took a handle and pulled, but it wouldn't budge and the number to the Alliance seemed to ring forever.

***

The shadow slunk around the edges, the walls, startling Stiles who swallowed.

_ Everyone has it... but no one can lose it… _

He heard his own screaming for help in his ears, but couldn’t figure out where it was coming from.

_ Let me in, Stiles… _

More screaming and fire, explosion after explosion, the dead eyes of some officer staring at him. His cold lips moving with those ugly words from what felt like years ago.

_ Let me in, Stiles...or I'll kill her. _

_ Let me in, Stiles... _

_ Watch him die, Stiles... We're going to kill everyone Stiles... everyone you've ever loved and raize it to the ground, Stiles... _

He remembered it then, remembered and raised his gun against the spell. The container was covered in a summoning spell, the baby was more bait than anything... innocent blood to add to it. But he was stronger now, much stronger-- he had to be. Had too,even as his heart hammered in his chest and his entire body shook in terror.

_ You'll never escape what you've done, Stiles... _

The baby screamed louder, probably smelling his terror, the darkness seeping into the container and maybe whatever lingering darkness that was in Stiles. He lifted it higher, and higher, pressing the muzzle to his skull as the spell increased its power, drawing on his pain and agony, his memories and Stiles squeezed the trigger and felt the blast explode along his nerves, ricocheting through his head, just like before, but clearer so much clearer. The circle died out and he fired again over the now wailing baby. He heard the roaring the screeching that once terrified him, but he fired and fired and fired again until the baby stopped wailing, eyes still wet and unhappy, but free of the runes. He lifted the baby girl into his arms and wrapped her in his jacket, leaning against the container, drained and too emotional to do more than cuddle the little girl close and breathe. It felt like hours before the door swung open and the last of the screaming in his ears faded away.

He was quiet, still hearing the past in his ears and those long months forced down under miles and miles of chaos hunger. The baby cooed in his arms, babbling happily at him as Derek came, kneeling beside him. He knew it was him as Der'aq brushed up against him.

"Stiles? Stiles?" Derek asked, the worry plain in his voice. Stiles wondered for a moment if he looked like hell warmed over. He certainly felt like it.

"I'm... alright..." he said softly,  "I'm alright."

Baby babbled an excited shriek and reached for Derek. Derek looked at her strangely for a moment, lifting her from Stiles's arms and smelling her and drew back. 

"What?" Derek asked frowning at the babbling baby. "What?"

Stiles looked at him strangely, "What is it?"

Derek lifted the baby and sat back staring hard at her. She babbled, stuffing her fist in her mouth and reaching towards him with the other tiny hand.

"This is impossible."

"What?" Scott asked.

"This is Cathy..." Derek said after a moment as she babbled and grabbed for his face again. "That's impossible."

"Cathy?" Stiles asked slowly, watching Derek with the baby in his arms, nuzzling against him and making content noises, still swaddled in Stiles's jacket. 

"Catherine Hale... she was... a cousin... We had her funeral just last year... she was... barely a newborn."

She looked and smelled the correct age if she’d been alive all this time. She remembered Derek, her wolf was the exact same, recognizing him from that night months ago… how was it possible?  Reaching towards him and taking comfort in his presence... what was he going to tell her parents? That the alliance and the lycan council had fucked up? That she was alive and had just been separated from her body? He didn't even know who told them that she was dead... 

Derek placed Catherine in Stiles's arms and scooped them both up, taking pictures of the empty container as they headed back towards the jeep and Scott’s car and police officers came to help take care of the scene long after the spirits dispersed. Derek put Stiles in the jeep with Catherine in his arms and climbed into the driver’s seat. Scott and Kira climbed in the back seat, grateful for a ride home that wasn’t the ambulance. 

He could hear Scott shifting his jaw back into place and leeching pain from Kira in his arms. When they stopped at Scott and Kira’s apartment, Derek lifted his phone from his pocket to make a call to Liam and to Catherine’s parents to just be awake when he got there. He dropped Stiles off at home, setting him into bed, clutching Derek’s pillow to himself with a promise that he would be back. Catherine teethed on a teething ring the twins had shoved in his pocket during his last visit. He sat down on the floor with her, regarding her.

“ _ Little one, do you know me? _ ”

He watched the fire red and ocean blue wolf bound forward towards him and heard Catherine’s happy gurgle. Der’aq stepped out tentative and watchful, smelling her, scenting her but ultimately recognizing her. Qaδ’ra, the little wolf that had drawn the whole Hale Pack in her fear, and again an entire gaggle of spirits, inciting them into a rage from her mistreatment. Qaδ’ra whined and nuzzled up against Der’aq and all at once, Derek got the memories… the faces she missed seeing, that made the weight of sorrow heavier than ever. 

“Cathy,” Derek breathed with relief, lifting her from the floor and into his arms, rocking her. “I’m so sorry sweetie, I’ll take you home. You’re home and safe. A’pella, A’Ravi…”

There was a soft sound of contentment in her throat as he grabbed his keys and headed down the stairs. He popped the trunk and lifted the car seat, strapped it in, behind the driver’s seat and tucked her into the seat. She cooed at him as he grinned and got into the car, turning away from Stiles’s apartment and driving across town to where he knew they were staying. He only hoped that the two wouldn’t be so drowned in grief that they would at least recognize their baby girl. She’d gone missing, the Lycan Elders had pronounced her dead, sold off to poachers. Rather than fight it, the couple, his cousin Jacob and his wife had been through enough at the loss of their little girl, he remembered them unable to look at each other for a long time. They had only just now started living together again in a tiny apartment, huddling together in their mourning. Liam had taken everything they owned and put it in storage, moving them somewhere less stressful in the aftermath of the funeral. The anniversary of Cathy going missing was coming up and he was sure that it was going to be a painful few months as they relived it all. 

***

When Jacob heard the door, he did his best not to wake Laia… She had only just gotten to sleep and it had been a long time since either of them managed to sleep more than a few moments at a time. Laia had thrown herself into a never ending stream of work, filling up every moment with something to do just to cope… to be honest, Jacob hadn’t been any better. Sparing time between trying not to think about it to try and reconnect with his wife. They were slowly becoming cordial again… no longer ghosts passing each other and clinging to each other… No longer two strangers sharing a bed, having rough angry, sex that made them feel sick afterwards… They hadn’t had sex since the week of the funeral… The thought of it made him sick, he could only imagine how it made her feel. 

Laia, due to a run in with a rogue alpha in her youth, had thought she would never have a child of her own… and then CAtherine had come and been taken away from them. They’d had heer in their arms for all of a month before the evening in the park. They could only remember bits and pieces: they’d fought, they’d lost, and when they’d woken up Catherine wasn’t in her stroller. 

They’d looked, tracked her scent as far as they could, but they were only led in maddened circles. The entire family had come to help, Derek had used every contact he had with the police and the alliance to find her but there had been nothing until an officer brought clothing covered in blood and wolfsbane to them. The Elders pronounced her poached. The Alliance pronounced her case closed and they’d had a funeral at the ruins of the old house for her.

“I’m coming,” Jacob murmured, he stumbled from his bedroom to see Laia already up. His let out a frustrated breath, but said nothing as she opened the door. Liam stood on the other side in his pajamas.

“Laia,” he greeted with a warm smile, hugging her tightly. “Sorry to wake you.”

She shook her head, “You didn’t.”

Jacob winced at that and took the hug from Liam on a shuddering breath. Liam stroked his hair gently.

“Easy, sit, Derek should be here soon.”

“Derek?” Laia asked. 

“He wouldn’t tell me what was going on, just said I should be here with you two.”

They heard the car pull up, the familiar roar of Laura’s Camaro and Derek coming up the stairwell. 

There was a babbling sound and Derek’s voice rumbling comfortingly. 

The knock sounded on the door and Liam opened it, his eyes going wide and looking at Derek and the baby in his arms.

“What…”

Derek’s mouth ticked up a bit, “Long story… I think.”

Liam nodded glancing back at the couple at the table, too tired to do anything but exist. 

“A-da!” Catherine shrieked, reaching for Liam. “A-da,ba ba ba… a-da!”

Liam felt his heart clench and he stepped aside letting Derek in with the baby. Laia and Jacob stared in disbelief and horror as Derek set the diaper bag he picked up on the way down and held Catherine in his arms.

“Derek…”

“A-ba! A-ga! Ga-ga-ga...A-ba!”

Derek grinned at the babbling and placed a pacifier in her mouth as she gave him a gummy smile. Jacob and Laia looked dumbstruck, their hands entwined with each other’s on the table, seeking strength in each other when there was none left.

Derek began speaking, mostly for Liam’s benefit as Catherine’s wolf,  Qaδ’ra had already bounded towards the two across the table whining and seeking a reaction, a greeting. Laia shook, Jacob’s eyes burned and he stood up shaking his head. 

“I...can’t… this...it’s too…”

Laia remained silent shaking as Qaδ’ra looked at her sadly, whining dragging her paws across the table afraid to move any farther… not old enough to know it was a spirit yet. Cathy began to fuss, sniffling and unhappy at the turnabout.

“I know this is a lot,” Derek said slowly. “But… look at her. At least look at her.”

Laia shook her head, leaving the room ignoring Cathy and Qaδ’ra’s whining. The bedroom door closed and there was no sound, but Jacob shaking his head, doing his best not to look at her. 

“Derek….what have you done?”

“Look at her Jacob and tell me this isn’t your daughter,” he said. “Tell me this isn’t Cathy.”

Jacob bit his lip but took a deep breath. He’d never let himself acknowledge the fact that he still believed Cathy was alive…It hurt too much to think of what was being done to her. It was much easier to grieve than to live with the gnawing, twisting of his wolf wanting to run to the ends of the earth to find her… He still looked, reading through the Elder’s Foundling lists to see if any children matched Catherine’s description, the Alliance Board, but… the cold punch of reality at every failure, the statistics, the probability of her being alive had just wore him down too much to keep trying. He’d only unsubscribed from the watch lists just a month prior and was still licking his wounds from that. 

He’d promised himself a month ago that he would focus on rebuilding his relationship with Laia, on mourning and letting her go… He’d promised. 

But he crossed the room to take her from Derek’s arms anyway. 

His own wolf, Ja’qav sliding to the ground before floating up to sit on the table with Qaδ’ra… He watched the small wolf that looked up at him with sad eyes, coming closer slowly, unsure and hesitant before moving closer to smell her, rubbing his head against her and hearing the comforted sound. Cathy’s fussing eased and all too soon the rush of memories came, Laia’s lullaby, their faces, playing peak -a -boo, twirling her around through the sky… the evening in the park… How she’d cried for them, wailing, her kidnappers, words that made no sense to her… All the white brightness, the pain as she was placed in a cage during the full moons. How she’d cried for them… the months of loneliness of dreaming of the soft sounds of Laia and Jacob’s voice singing to her...the Hale family lullaby.

The comforting words swept through his own memories as they shared the moment. 

“ _ Uil,tsδruδ'a... Nava'il'ðo Ravi qual il a...A’garga nue...A’zilðo...  _ _ “ _

His eyes were burning, Qaδ’ra and Ja’qav curled together comforted and comfortable on the table with her curled up against him.

_ Da... _

“Cathy,” he sobbed, pressing her close, cradling her in his arms, nuzzling her. “Cathy...I’m so sorry honey...I’m sorry.. You’re home now. I promise. you’re home… you won’t be alone ever again, I swear.”

Cathy made a contented sound, curled up against him as he scented her and she was lulled by the smell of him. Derek let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding before Liam nudged him.

“Good job.”

Derek smiled at him with a grin before standing and leaving with Liam, letting Jacob get his wife and daughter in one room together, letting them be together.

“We’ll let them tell everyone in their own time…”Liam said. “No need to have the entire family over so near.”

Derek nodded and walked down to his car with Liam. He climbed in and drove back towards Stiles’s apartment. The young man was in the living room, eyes open and staring into the darkness of the apartment with a hot cup of tea in his hands. 

“Stiles?”

Stiles looked over at him as he came to sit on the couch with him. 

“I woke up,” Stiles said simply. “Couldn’t go back to sleep.”

Derek nodded, moving to stretch out and pull off his boots. His leather jacket across the back of the couch as he pulled Stiles up against him.   
“Come here,” he said taking the cup of tea from him. “You don’t need any caffeine.”   
“It’s not caffeinated,” he said softly. “Chamomille… my mom used to make it when I couldn’t sleep.”

He nodded, tucking Stiles into his side and taking deep breaths.

“How’d they take it?”

“Better than I thought… they’ll be alright I think. It was just a bit of a shock for them. Laia… may have a bit of a time coming around though.”

Stiles nodded, sinking into Derek’s side and dozing off as Derek’s hand slid along his side beneath his shirt in a lazy caress. 

***

Derek gets woken up a few hours later by a call from the Alliance telling him that he has an appointment with his trauma counselor and that Special Agent Layla has asked him to come in. Stiles is in the kitchen, half naked and cooking breakfast for the two of them. There’s the smell of fresh decaf coffee and breakfast. 

“How long have you been awake?” Derek asked. 

“A while,” Stiles said easily, coming back to the couch with the large stack of waffles that smell sweet and steaks. 

“You alright?” Derek asked. 

Stiles nodded, “I think I could use this day off... Maybe go hang out with Scott or something.”

Derek nodded and thanked him for breakfast before starting to eat. He stole a kiss before heading into the bathroom to get ready for the day. Stiles is still half stunned when he steals another one and head out the door. 

Derek walked in and sat down on the overstuffed couch, settling into its comfort, and waited for Layla O’Reilly to harangue him for everything he’s done wrong. He knew she got off on power and it irritated her that she was attracted to him and he showed no interest in rolling over and letting her beat him. Needless to say, it was awkward when she appeared in this wrap dress, just shy of business professional with a low neckline and heels that made her several inches taller. His wolf rumbled low, recognizing a show of fitness when he saw it, an attempt to court.His wolf was simultaneously flattered and repulsed. Layla was similar to Kate in the way she wanted him: to control him like a pet. 

“I believe we got off on the wrong foot, Derek.”

He felt his eyebrow raise as she slunk across the room towards him. If he didn’t have such a bad history with her, he would have said she was attractive, but as it stood, she just pissed him off more.

“You’ve thrown the Alliance for quite the loop…”

“What do you want?”

“Always straight to the point,” Layla admonished. “Don’t you ever just want to shoot the breeze?”

“Not with you. What do you want?”

Layla smiled slow and devious, inimical, he was sure, to the carefully constructed calm he was existing in. She lounged against her desk and Derek did his best not to roll his eyes. His wolf was ready to growl at her and tear her face off, remembering that it was her that had detained him after Kate died, demanded that he be interrogated and locked up. It was also probably her that let Kate’s abuse of him go so far.

“A truce,” she said. “You’re about to be a very important man, Alpha Hale.”

He stiffened and stood knowing that his eyes were bleeding red, “ _ Do not test my patience, Layla. _ Liam is the Alpha of the Hale Pack.”

She shrugged, “He doesn’t have to be… You could be the Alpha if you wanted… get out of being an agent… get onto more civilized things than running around in the night.”

Derek growled stepping forward and barely restraining himself from choking her. Her eyes were goading him,  _ do it _ and he could smell how close to getting off she was. 

“I have no interest in your politics,” Derek said. “If that’s all you wanted to say, I’m leaving.”

“You won’t have a choice,” she said loftily. “The Alliance is never going to let you stay an agent and an Alpha… and neither will the Lycan Elders, you know that.”

Derek said nothing, but turned to leave the room, shuddering at the tremor of disgust wiggling down his spine. He should have killed her when he was still a mostly feral wolf… At least he could have blamed it on Kate. He snorted at that and continued down the hallway towards that dreaded room. They had forced him to go to counseling since Kate died, something about the effect of losing a partner. It had really been a huge waste of time as he sat there watching the moments tick by, but today there was a different, familiar face there to greet him. 

“Julia,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“You uncle put in a good word so you can actually not waste your time in these meetings. Please have a seat.”

Derek had a feeling that he would actually stay the whole session if it it was Julia taking those mental notes on him. She still hadn’t told him exactly what she was. 

“You can guess,” she said with a smile. 

He wasn’t sure how long he spent thinking about it before she smiled at him and told him that their session was over.

“It seems you’re well on your way to recovering. Finding your mate will do that for you.”

His face heated, “My-... what?”

She smiled and pat him on the shoulder, “We sparks have a way of knowing these things. Congratulations. I hope things continue to go well.”

He isn’t sure what to say, or if there is anything to say, but hearing that Julia was a spark made so much sense and he’s smiling as he walks out of the embassy and to his car. Der’aq is content and settled throughout him. He feels… almost happy and hadn’t remembered the last time he’d felt that way.

When he returns to Stiles’s apartment, the young man is on the floor with Scott playing video games. It’s a two player fighting game that Derek recognizes vaguely as Mortal Kombat, a super retro version from a prior century. 

“Dude… Derek just walked in.”

“He’s been staying here out of the kindness of my heart--Hah! I win!”

“Dude not fair!”

Kira is in the kitchen grabbing drinks and greets him with a smile, “I hope I’m not the only one that will be sitting out.”

Derek nodded, “I’m not much for video games.”

They sit at the table and talk about nothing in particular before Kira brings up Christmas.

“Melissa said that Scott’s Dad might come.”

Scott froze and Stiles winced at the mention of his father before turning, “She said that?”

Kira nodded, “She didn’t want me to tell you, but you had to know… before showing up at the house and potentially getting into a full lycan battle around the Christmas tree.”

“No need,” Scott said. “I just won’t. We can spend Christmas with your family.”

Kira shook her head, “They’re going to Japan and we’re scheduled to be on call around then… besides this year Christmas falls on a full moon.”

Derek nodded a slow grin coming to his face as his phone rang. He stepped outside as Scott turned to regard Kira seriously, “You can’t be serious?”

Kira nodded, “Apparently, they had a huge fight over it. Melissa doesn’t want him to come… but she also doesn’t know much about all of that falling together on one day will mean for your lycan sensibilities… Have you talked to your mom at all about any of it?”

Scott shook his head, they had only just recently begun to patch up their relationship… Bringing up the large hairy elephant that looked like a wolf in the room hadn’t been at the top of this conversation topics… She would want to know how much progress he’s made with accepting his lycan side… how much closer he’d become to his wolf…

“Hey… does my wolf spirit have a name?”

Stiles laughed, “Yes… but as far as I understand, only family or Pack would be able to tell you what it is…”

Scott growled, “That sucks...We’ll just spend Christmas with Stiles… and his Dad, right?”

Stiles shrugged, “Dunno what we’re doing for the holiday either. Dad’s been pulling a lot of double shifts to cover everything… I don’t even know if he’ll have time or energy for Christmas.”

Derek peaked back in, “I’ll be back… Lycan, when I come back?”

“Sure,” Stiles said. “Just know I’m not going easy on you today.”

Derek flashed him a grin before closing the door. They waited for about three minutes before Scott and Kira were ganging up on him with questions about Derek. How long he’d been staying, what’s going on between them…

“Erm...what do you mean?”

“He smells different… not like ALpha different… like…  content or something.”

“Could be the fact that the Lycan Elders have decided not to kill him… and his family is working it’s way back together?”

Kira shook her head, “Don’t try and wiggle out of this Stiles. I don’t have lycan sense but I do have female intuition and there’s something going on that you’re not spilling.”

Stiles did his best to keep a straight face but with the two of them leaning in and watching every flicker of emotion it was just best to sigh and tell them the truth. 

“I’m not really sure…”

Kira frowned, “What do you mean?”

He started with the becoming alpha deal, and all of his research outside of the Hale family Vault--

“You’ve been in the family vault?”

“It’s more like a large library for Shifters at large, but yes, I’ve been in the family vault and… things happened since I’ve been teaching him lycan… since before then…”

“What kind of things?”

Stiles swallowed and wasn’t sure how much to give them, but he gave them something small enough to lead them in a different direction, but large enough to satisfy them until he really had his own head around the situation. 

“Well… in general… he’s less growly… I think back to back life or death situations has changed our partnership…”

He gave them as many details about what happened when he was kidnapped and when Derek had been taken in Texas as he could manage, skirting around some of the more intimate moments since then. 

“He trusts you,” Kira said. “And you obviously trust him.”

“He’s done nothing to make me think that I shouldn’t.”

Scott is willing to let it go, but Stiles knows that Kira is going to watch them extremely closely. She already has a hunch about it and Stiles isn’t willing to validate her just yet. It’s three hours later when Stiles is making lunch that Derek comes back, turning his key in the door and dusted with spackle and dust. His boots are dirty and he smells like he’s been doing hard labor. 

“What happened?” Kira asked. “You look like you came from a construction site.” 

He only flashed her a grin and said he was going to take a shower before lunch. He wandered down the hall. 

“So… is this going to be a thing? You two living together?”Scott asked. 

Stiles snorted, “No, he’ll only be here until he can move into his place is all. No big deal.”

SCott nodded, said cool but Kira… as she is one to do, still looked suspicious of it all. And she continued being suspicious all through the afternoon and Stiles was sure into the night. As the days passed, she said nothing, but still watched them with that knowing look even as Scott looked as though none of it made any sense. 

When November hit and things got chilly, Derek looked more and more beside himself with each passing day… until one day Kira stopped him.

“What are you so giddy about?”

Derek beamed and promptly pulled out a reel of photos of his baby cousin,Madeline Hale, the first Hale born in a year, cuddled up with a bright eyed Cathy. Stiles grinned knowing exactly what it meant to Derek for newborns to be in the family and the the fact that the Hale House was more than just mostly finished. The last few checks and some painting had to be done to which Stiles said he’d be willing to help. Derek ended up inviting Scott and Kira on their day off to come help as well. 

When they arrived, it was was like stepping through a wrapped time machine. The house was larger than any of them remembered with a slightly different look, but still that same majesty that made the estate look more beautiful than ever. The fountain in front had been restored to its former glory and tarps and things were everywhere as people took up painting the walls and banisters, shining and polishing. Stiles could feel the warmth radiating from Derek’s chest as he looked around. 

“Isaac!” He called through the house and the curly haired young man came around the corner to greet him warmly. “What do you think?”

“I never saw the house before… but I think they’ll love it.”

He nodded with a grin, “How much more paint to go?”

“Just finishing up and removing the tape and all that. Letting it dry, nothing too serious. We were going to run last checks before the delivery people arrived.”

Derek nodded, shrugging off his jacket to throw back into Stiles’s jeep. They each took up a paintbrush to hurry along the finishing touches and do the last sweep of the house. They leave the plastic and mats down to protect the floors before taking lunch. When the delivery vans arrive, everyone is up guiding in furniture and assembling stands to fill the living room and the den with electronics and things. The living rooms are huge, the dining room is even larger and decked out with cabinets and the like. ALl the appliances gleam fresh out of the packaging,and start right up. Large double door refrigerators line one wall, a large stove and grill top in the island. Stiles can only imagine how many people Derek is planning to cook for in the monstrosity of a kitchen.

“Everyone,” he said dreamily and Stiles only laughed.

When it’s all in, the construction team goes home for the most part and everyone left takes off their shoes and cleans up before carrying large paintings and decorations from the family vault. Laia comes just as they’re getting ready to start on the main living room.

They come back every weekend to get as much done as possible and when every decoration is up and every painting hung… Derek can only stand in front and stare in awe with everyone who has come to help rebuild the house. They turn on the lights in the middle of the night to see the Christmas wonderland they’ve created of the new Hale House. The days leading up to Christmas are spent hunting in the woods, shopping at the grocery store and making Hale family favorites according to the family recipes that Derek has scribbled in his head and found in the vault. Pie, cakes, ham, deer, and all the other favorites are made ready. He asks Stiles to cast the spell that will cloak it all and make it look like the ruins of the Hale house and breathes. 

His insides are shaking and no matter how many times everyone says that everything will turn out fine, there’s the doubt and fear and trepidation of just not knowing. Luckily for him, the day of Christmas Eve is filled with more drama than peace. 

Mr. McCall does in fact show up as the McCall House looking for Scott while Scott and Kira are there with all of his relatives. Stiles, Derek, and John are there as well packing up things to take to the Hale house as Derek has invited them to their family Christmas. Scott makes easy work of ignoring his father’s existence until the man grabs him by the arm and is flanked by his Uncles who all look as though they’ve been waiting to come and take Scott by the hand. 

Scott says calmly, “I’m spending Christmas and the full moon with my Pack.”

The man looks dumbfounded as if the thought that Scott wouldn’t come seeking answers from him had never crossed his mind. 

“They won’t be able to tell you your name,” he said. “Only your Alpha or your native Pack can do that… and you haven’t joined a Pack, Scott. Just come with me, we can teach you. Your family can teach you.”

Scott blinked and looked to Derek who looked a little surprised by the revelation before Scott set the plate he was carrying down and turned towards Derek with a sheepish look before Derek realized exactly what Scott was suggesting in confused terms. Stiles’s jaw dropped. Derek smiled slowly, it was a prideful smile and Derek set the bowl he was carrying down before approaching Scott a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ve always been Pack,  _ Zi’qoδ _ .”

His father’s jaw dropped as Derek’s eyes began to glow red and Scott’s glowed yellow. There was a soft whine in the back of Scott’s throat as Derek swiped his hands over Scott’s face, his neck, the inside of his wrist. Scott shuddered and swooned as Derek’s eyes stopped glowing. It took a moment for him to steady himself, but there was a happy smile on his face and he grabbed the plate of Christmas cookies and pointedly marched past his father towards the Jeep. 

He came after him, “You can’t! You’re my son! You should be with me!”

Scott turned to him calmly, “Where was all that fire when you were so drunk you threw me down the stairs?”

The man made a choked sound, “When you left and never came back? When you  _ met _ me at the embassy and didn’t spare me more than a glance?”

“Where were you when I was taken from my classes and forced to wear that collar? Where were you when I was so out of my mind that I chased my best friend through the woods half drugged on wolfsbane and half shifted? Where were you on my first full moon? My first full shift?”

“You’ve… shifted fully?” He asked astonished. Melissa’s jaw dropped apparently Scott hadn’t told her yet either. “When?”

“Months ago! No thanks to you!”

“Scott…”

“Shut up,” he growled. “Just shut up and go away. The next time you decide to pop back into my life, maybe you’ll do it with a little more grace.”

Stiles winced at the venom in his voice and could feel Derek watch carefully, ready to step in if need be, but the man seemed to back down, defeated before glaring at Derek, Melissa and stalking off with his brothers. 

“That… won’t be the end of that I’m sure,” Stiles said. 

Scott made a frustrated sound before Derek ruffled his hair, “You did well, pup.”

Scott flushed and climbed into the car and then they were off to the Hale House to turn on the lights and get all the food laid out as the sun began to set. Everyone exited the house to be out front when people began arriving. The illusion was recast and Stiles stood at the ready to undo it. 

Liam is the first to arrive with an SUV full of people and kids that bound over to Derek happily, begging to be picked up and hugged and kissed in quick, soft lycan. The next truck has even more people leaping out to greet everyone. Jacob, Laia and Cathy are third to arrive, immediately handing off Cathy to the circle of warm, happy and familiar faces that greet and nuzzle each other. When the baby, mother, and father arrive, they part the crowd and almost immediately the baby is passed around to see everyone, smell everyone and be coddled. It’s the happiest he’s seen them all in a long time. As more cars pull up and Derek works to introduce all the people he’s invited to his family, there’s a trembling warmth in him seeing them all together. 

The last car is a cab dropping Cora and Malia off as well as a few other family members that just got in from wherever they’d gone to. Cora and Malia run straight for him and he catches both young women in his arms with a laugh and kiss for each of them. They chat for a few moments before Derek steps on top of the fountain’s edge and faces them. Stiles slinks to the edge of the crowd as Derek whistles high into the air drawing the crowd to look at him. 

“It’s great that everyone could make it,” Derek said with a grin. 

There’s a snort and someone comments about not having much choice with Derek calling everyone, booking flights and getting  _ everyone  _ to bully  _ everyone else  _ into coming. Derek grinned despite the grumbling. 

“It worked didn’t it?” Derek asked and they laugh saying he’s just like Laura.

There’s a bittersweet chuckle as he takes another breath.

“This year’s special as we all agree. It’ll be the first full moon and winter solstice in centuries. I thought it was a big deal to have everyone here. I have an announcement.”

"No duh!" Cora and Malia yelled over the congregation. “You’ve been sleeping in the ruins haven't you? Don’t lie we have reputable sources!"

"Yes,” Derek growled out, glaring at them pointedly at the warm sprite of laughter that went through the crowd. “But that's not what I'm announcing."

"We're going to get you about this later," Malia warned him.

"I'm sure you will. It's good to actually have everyone here... It's been a long time since we've all actually been together. Lots of changes. First being, Alpha Hale now has a second in command."

They all look around and then back to Derek who has not changed for the event, still wearing his handler gear, leather jacket and eyes so bright that it’s scary. Stiles knows he's nervous and happy and a whole mess of emotions. Their eyes meet and Stiles grins at him, nodding. 

"Yeah... accidents happened, I became an alpha--not important. Any--"

"WHAT?!"

The full congregation yells, except for the children, the twins just say "Unple Therek cool." The baby makes a tiny whine at the spike in noise and the teenagers are just dumbfounded. Cora and Malia go pale.

"This is isn't something you just announce like this, Derek!" Cora yelled. "What the actual--"

He waved his hands over his head in surrender, "I thought it would be a nice surprise, but that also isn't what I'm announcing! We're not here to talk about me being an alpha... We're here to talk about us. As a pack, as a family. It's been a long time since we've been Ravi...For the past seven years, we've come here for all of an hour and then go back to surviving day by day, we go back to where we're apart, where we're all floating around without pack and clinging to our spouses and children but almost never to each other..."

That seemed to quiet the protests and questions. 

“We are pack and though we forget, though we drift, though we suffer, we are pack and it’s time we all remember that.” Derek sighed and nodded at Stiles to get ready, he sees Stiles move towards the end of the driveway, behind the small crowd, "So... in honor of all that and as my first real act of being an alpha of the Hale Pack... I have a christmas gift... it's a little early but that's tradition isn't it?"

"Yeah..."

"Please don't let it be socks!" James cried. "I don't need any more socks!"

Derek shook his head helplessly as everyone else laughed,  “In honor of the winter solstice, the full moon and the memories of those who have gone before…”

He nods again and Stiles cocks his gun aiming at the ground. Everyone turns staring at the man ready to fire at the ground. 

Derek clears his throat, “As tradition, recite it with me?”

There’s a hush that falls over and Derek says it slow and even, eyes light up across the pack. It’s the soft sound of the lullaby that lifts into the air, the chorus of voices ringing up. Magic swirls as Stiles fires and they begin the song together. As they sing, the spell melts away. The gravel road gives way to solidly paved driveway trimmed with lights and the magic unfold underneath their feet, standing on the paved driveway, revitalizing the fountain, starting the flow again. The wolves have been shined, restored each of them with a different eye color: red, blue, and yellow. Then the spell rushes back across the yard, reveal freshly cut grass and redone stairs rails decked with Christmas lights and candy canes across the yard. Snowmen and dancing elves light up the night as the ruins of the house give way to the Christmas wonder. Santa Claus on the roof, his sleigh parked next to the chimney he was hauling himself over. They could see his flashing yellow eyes from the distance. It was the same Santa that Talia would put up for Christmas.

They could see the massive Christmas tree through the bay windows in the front of the house, decorated in that old familiar way. Christmas jingles in lycan, in english swirled, the hum of electricity in the karaoke station... the smell of home and warmth. All things familiar and comforting. It wasn't the same as they house they'd come to years ago, but it was similar... maybe stronger than before and they all stared dumbfounded at the house as the song ends and then up at Derek, who is smiling nervously. Liam was at a loss for words along with the rest of them. 

" _ Voices singing let's be jolly--deck the halls with boughs of holly... _ "

"Derek..." Emilia started, her children staring in wonder at the house even as their eyes burned with tears.

"I think it's time that we... remember them and what it means to be ravi again."

The tears start quick as Derek leaps down and takes Emilia's hands and leads her and the kids into the house the rest of his family and friends follow soon after and soon they're staring at the Christmas tree topped with that familiar topping. Never a star, always the silver moon, so gorgeous and so perfect that it made them all tremble and shake, crying at the sight of it. It was everything, all home and hearth, pack and family. The yard has been trimmed and added to in the back, a playground with a jungle gym decked with lights and decorations, safe for human and lycan children. 

"It's empty..." Someone said. 

"There's no one living here yet," Derek said looking at them all expectantly. "There's plenty of space... I think it's about time we all have a stable place to call home... and we all den together again."

"Does that mean we get to move in?!" Cina asked, eyes looking up at the Christmas tree.

"Yes."

"Score!"

"Unple Therek... Unple Therek..." the twins called waddling their way towards him. He kneeled to kiss their cheeks and ruffle their hair.

"What a way to make an entrance," Liam said. "Alpha Derek."

He grinned.

"How long have you been planning this?"

"Since I went back to the alliance."

Liam nodded and Derek waved his hands again, calling everyone's awestruck attention, "And the entire territory is fire proof, it's magically warded against practically everything, I promise."

There's a laugh that's bitter and happy and a little wet that floats through the room as people venture farther into the house, slowly filling the empty air with their scents. It's a bittersweet feeling until Cora sees the karaoke set up. Malia wanders into the living room to see the paintings on the wall. Peter loved art.

"Laura would love this..."

"And be really bad at it," Malia quipped.

Derek agreed and went to Emilia who was getting ready to leave. He stopped her, taking her trembling hands. She was on the edge of tears that she’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry. 

"Derek... this is...I can't... without Adam... I said I would visit, we'd spend Christmas with him."

"Not yet," Derek says wiping Emilia face. "Not yet. I have one more gift.... because I have to spoil people." 

Emilia shook her head, taking her hands from his and hustling her kids towards the door, barely keeping herself from a hysterical fit as the door opens and standing there is Adam, in a santa hat, his arm in a sling, and grinning a bright shiny bow wrapped around the bicep that gripped the crutch he leaned on.

"Dad," one of them breathed and Emilia stared at him, lost hopeless, her brain had finally stopped working and tears that she'd refused to cry were falling. Derek watched on. 

Adam smiles and steps into the house as he closes the door behind him, "Ama'lia, h'oqan."

It's a desperate, heart wrenching sob that comes from her as she steps into his arms and her legs give out, dragging them both to the ground, his kids coming to join the sobbing heap on the floor. Adam is making hushing noises, speaking low even lycan over the three, stroking their hair and scenting them, letting them sink into the comfort of his arms.

Stiles grinned from the kitchen.

"Unple Abam!"

"Adam?"

The words travel fast in a house of lycans that all come to the foyer to see him, locked in a desperate kiss with his wife and trying to ease his children's sobbing. They’re a happy sobbing pile on the floor and Derek knows that he won’t see them apart for the rest of the night. 

Adam grins at Derek and thanks him for taking care of them while he couldn’t.

“A’aqr`Ravi.”

Adam’s eyes widened seeing the happy red of Derek’s eyes, “What the hell happened while I was out?”

Derek grinned, “A lot.”

Derek eventually convinces them to go into the living room and sit together on the couch. Food and drinks get passed around, people come to hug him and stack presents beneath the tree. They go exploring the house eventually, the cobblestone pathways that lead to the playground and the cottage behind the house. 

“It’s so big!” the kids scream, rushing for the playground to work up an appetite… and hopefully burn off some of the sugar. 

Family that he hasn’t seen in years comes from the front lines is there, looking tired but revived at the sight of it. Many of them went to escape the fact that there was nothing really to come home to. He hugs them tightly and tells them that he understands, tells them that they can come home and there’s a place for them again, there always was. 

There are far more tears between adults than children. For the most part, they pass out on the ridiculous number of cushions in the living rooms. In the morning the kids are up with Derek, including the baby in the kitchen while he makes a ridiculous number of pancakes and waffles. Bacon fried by the pound and Stiles is amazed that he can keep track of all the orders and settle the kids before their parents wake up. He keeps them from screaming “It’s Christmas” until ten ‘o'clock and baby Madeline seems quite content in his arms which doesn’t come as a shock to anyone.

“Kids love Derek,” Kalia says. “They always have.”

They play outside for most of the day to keep the wild full moon energies at bay and eat a lot of food. They talk and wander around the estate screaming and happy. When the sun goes down, everyone gathers in the backyard to watch the moon rise into the sky and shift together. Stiles, Kira, Melissa, and John watch partially in awe as they get ready for the run. Derek and Scott come to them and tug on Stiles and Kira’s clothing. 

John and Melissa are regulated to sit in the house and eat as Stiles and Kira are practically dragged into the pack’s formation. 

Stiles can see the spirits of the Hale family flanking them and slipping through the pack’s formation as Liam nudges Derek to the front with him. They stare at each other for a moment before Derek steps to the front beside Liam and everyone gets ready. He lets out a growl and runs forward leading them all out at a steady pace to keep track of children and the humans that are running with them. They run the entire Hale Estate that night howling to the full moon and joined by those that have gone before them. It’s mystical and magical and when they round the path and head back to the house there’s a great howl that echoes up into the sky carried by long gone spirits into the air and beyond, announcing the Hale Pack as reforged and stronger than ever. 

When they all shift back and get dressed to come back in, it’s a long night of caroling and karaoke, of fun and old family traditions. Liam and Amy get trapped under lover’s root and Amy does her best to escape, but Liam isn’t having it. The whole house goes up in cheers when Liam pulls her in for a kiss and crowds her against the wall, practically stealing her breath and every protest she ever thought she could manage. When they part, his eyes are glowing and she smells more than just like pack, but like him. 

“There are children present!” Cora teased. “Please get a room.”

Amy flushed, but when the kids bring up claiming rooms, it’s a race to see who can find the perfect room the fastest. The two cottages on either side of the house are strategically placed to have optimal view in all directions. 

Derek’s cottage is already sparsely furnished and when they open presents… years and years of hopes, dreams and sadness piled on the floor. Somehow, no one cried. Stiles couldn’t believe that they had a karaoke tradition and that Derek actually joined in on the mic with his sister and cousin. From what he gathered, he was taking the place of a deceased member of the family. They laughed and sang all the old classics, adding new songs and demanding that each of the new members got up to sing as well. They found that Jackson was tone deaf, Lydia wasn’t much better, Stiles could hold a note, but had no talent other wise and Scott was the worst of all of them. But they laughed and drank and ate and before any of them realized, had all passed out in the den of pillows, curled together under the full moon.

That night, Derek dreamt of his mother and Laura, his elder brothers and the other alphas that had been lost in the fire. They smiled at him, nodding their approval, passing their hands over him: his neck, the insides of his wrists, all the vulnerable places that were meant to smell of pack and felt , for the first time in a long time, that he’d done the right thing.


	16. Fingerprints That Tell You He Loves You--

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post-Christmas feels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone asking for the more recent chapter's translations. I have them, I just haven't posted them since knowing what was said in the moment isn't really as important as the conversations they have around some of the dialogue (like Stiles and Derek in the library talking about what Ravi meant while she was throwing Stiles around). Also, they're, for the most part, just remixes of other things that have been translated. It's all consistent, promise.

It doesn’t take long for the Hale’s and all the new members to move into the estate. Before anyone realized, the house was so steeped with the smell of them all that they couldn’t tell that the walls had just been painted or the floors redone. It smelled like home and Hale, something that Derek relished in every time he made the short walk from his cottage to the main house to make breakfast or lunch. 

He enjoys the rest of the break in mostly peace with intermittent visits from Stiles, Scott, and Kira in his small cottage. He makes dinner for them when they all have late nights and they talk about upcoming cases. 

It’s a week before he and Stiles have a serious overnight case. It isn’t the worse that they’ve faced, but it’s obvious that the Alliance and the Lycan Elders are working to get rid of them. There was a supposed sighting of the man that had kidnapped Stiles and killed Dean, but it had been a lie. After roughhousing in the dark with a pair of strung out shifters and getting them cuffed, Derek drives them to the Hale Estate. They pull up beside Stiles’s jeep and they stumble in, bone tired and covered in ash into Derek’s cottage. Per prior agreements, Derek directed him to the shower upstairs and told him to at least try and get the smell of explosions off his skin and he’ll make them something to eat before letting him go home. 

“Don’t let me fall asleep in the shower.”

Derek only smiles, knowing that wasn’t going to happen, before heading to his own room and shirking the ash covered clothing in favor of a pair of sleep pants and a black henley. He’s placing a steaming bowl of soup on the kitchen island and carrying the other with him to the low foot rest just to the left of the breakfast nook when Stiles comes out, smelling like unscented soap and steam. 

Derek looks down for a moment before a half smile breaks across his lips and he looks up to let his eyes drag over Stiles’s form as he leans against the island and set up his tablet to conduct his own late night research of what happened that night. he’d been studying the runes for weeks, but they weren’t ringing any obvious bells… of course, it may have been because he only had pieces of the runes and not the full circle yet, but Stiles liked to work with as much or as little as he’s given. A few minutes pass in silence before Stiles realizes that Derek is staring at him.

“What?”

“It’s nothing,” he says with a shake of his head, yet Stiles knows he’s lying.

Stiles glances to his shirt, there’s no awkward splashes of soup on his shirt and there didn’t seem to be anything out of place with his zipper...and then he realizes that he doesn’t have a zipper and that the sweatpants he’s wearing aren’t his as they have Beacon Hills High Basketball on the side. The t-shirt isn’t his either and the blush starts in his cheeks and floods the rest of his face. 

Derek watches it with an odd fascination. 

“S-Sorry… we must have switched go bags at some point… I’ll change--”

“No need,” he said with a smile. “I rather like you wearing my clothes.”

He snorted, “For that high school scenario, you’d have to give up the leather jacket… and maybe sing on top of a theme park ride.”

Derek laughed and stood, emptying his bowl and stealing a kiss from Stiles as he crowded him up against the kitchen island. Stiles shuddered at the hard length of Derek pressing up against him, the steady skill of his mouth on his and tried to hang on for dear life. When Derek wrapped an arm around his waist and growled, he guessed that meant that fainting or his knees giving out wasn’t a viable means of getting the kiss to be a little less invasive sensually and spiritually. He could feel Der’aq reaching out, yet it didn’t happen and before he realized it, Derek had lifted him up and set him on the island, carrying their bowls to the sink to wash as Stiles tried to regain his equilibrium. 

Derek didn’t seem to mind, retrieving Stiles and returning to kissing him as he carried the younger man up the stairs. Despite his protests and suggestions to sleep on the couch or go home.

“Shut up, Stiles,” he said. Stiles did his best not to rub up against him, but it was hard with their crotches so close together. Derek’s kisses had gone from heated to sweet and soothing before they made it to Derek’s room at the top of the stairs. 

Derek laid him beneath the blankets and crawled in beside him, humming low and content in his chest as he held Stiles close to him. 

After that, it seemed that every night was a chance to snuggle and make out , just short of hot and heavy whenever they were together. He figured that his apartment was beginning to smell like Derek and Derek's cottage was beginning to smell more and more like him. Not to mention the exorbitant amount of time they spent in the main estate playing with kids when they were off, talking to Liam after this ancient lycan sessions. 

Liam had begun putting out feelers for Spark and Druids to come and help translate it all after Derek brought it up... after Stiles pushed him to. 

"For those that never knew like Scott so they don't have to fumble and hope their best friend has a penchant for research."

The mention of Scott, Derek's official first beta, had been enough for the man to go to Liam with the idea.... Liam had caved immediately, knowing for certain that the number of orphan kids under the protection of the Lycan Elders, lacking anyone that cared enough to teach them the things they really needed to know, was considerable.  Who knew what they were being taught between schools that knew nothing and a whole host of ignorant teachers across the world.

Everyone was on board... at least until Stiles was drafted to help and spent a great amount of time in close quarters with people that weren't pack and weren't familiar. Derek wasn’t too comfortable with that idea. Stiles couldn't help it really, he'd always had a sort of pull on other magical people so when he met up with the coalition that had cleared Liam's rigorous test to be allowed to access the books Derek and Stiles had helped select it didn't surprise him when people hugged him out of nowhere, getting close and staying close. 

What was surprising is when he went to Derek's cottage around midnight, after a long night of translating, and collapsed on the couch, Derek appeared standing over him, glaring at him until he realized that it was Stiles asleep on the couch. When he woke up to the sound of breakfast being made, he sat up from the couch and went to the bathroom to wash his face and gargle with toothpaste until he could get home and do a proper job. He was contemplating the steaming mug of tea on the table when it happened. 

A too intense awareness prickling on his spine, he felt Derek coming up behind him in that slow prowl he’d perfected over the years. The hairs on the back of Stiles’s neck stood up as Derek’s breath ghosted over the back of his neck and hot, soft lips pressed against the spot. His heart fluttered and his body froze. Derek pulled back just a fraction so only his breath brushed against his skin and Derek traced a hot warm line up his neck and just behind his ear. Facets of Stiles’s scent were concentrated in all of his erogenous zones not completely uncommon, but they differed from his scent anywhere else and made Derek a little dizzy with their potency.

“ _ Stiles _ ,” he said on a soft groan and that was probably Stiles’s cue to leave as he practically ran into the table to avoid Derek’s presence and rounded the other side.

When their eyes met, Derek’s eyes were glowing that emotionally aroused hazel with flecks of green and a burning hot stare was directed at him. Every muscle in his body was tensed and tracked Stiles’s movements towards the door, taking note of the rambling the boy was doing as he grabbed his cup of tea. Stiles turned the doorknob and began opening when Derek was behind him again a large hand flat on the door and with a deft push, he closed it. Stiles stood still trying to search his brain for something he’d learned to help him, to make him understand to give him a sense of control. But… his mind was blank and that was scarier than anything.

"Stiles," he breathed, his warm scent almost so sweet he had cavities, almost too alluring to hold himself back. But he was a lycan, not an animal. The animal in him was clawing at the edges of his mind and drawing closer to the surface.

"Derek...?" That upturn of his voice made the wolf growl and Derek closed his fist on the door placing his other fist on the other side of Stiles’s head.

Trapped, cornered, detained at the least...that's how he felt. His heart thrumming, the sparks of information, flickers and embers of impulses firing. Even his soul seemed to be reacting as Derek breathed in...shaking.

"Are you okay?" Stiles asked.

"Wolf,"he growled. "Need..."

Stiles gasped feeling Derek slide a fraction closer.

"What?"

"To take the edge off...will you... let me?"

"Let you...?"

"Scent you," Derek gritted out. "You smell like...not mine."

Stiles shivered at the depth of possession in those words. The wolf was peeking through the man and if he turned around he had no doubt that the other's eyes would be a flickering mess of gold, green, and red. Fighting the instinct to have Stiles as a Beta or Omega would have been hard, but, as an Alpha, it had nearly killed him.

"I wouldn’t..  without your permission."

He snorted, "What an odd thing to say."

He growled and pressed closer, "Don't tease me, Stiles. I'm barely holding back as it is. Just answer me,  _ please _ ."

Maybe it was the desperation in his voice or the fact that Stiles was a hormonal, virginal teenager, who’d barely ever kissed anyone let alone been pinned against a door by someone who was  _ way  _ out of his league. But whatever it was, Stiles didn't fully remember what he said, but he guessed he'd given permission because all at once, Derek had him pressed against the door, hips to hips, the full length of him up against him as Derek took his time to pin Stiles’s hands down with his own, fingers interlaced. Derek's thigh wedged between his and hiked up, just enough that Stiles’s weight settled on the junction Derek's thigh and hip. He forced Stiles’s head aside to drag his beard stubbled face against his neck. The stubble was oddly soft, a stark contrast to the hardness pressed up against his back and ass and the solidity with which Derek held him in place. 

He could have moved if he'd just said the word, but he didn't. Scrambling, fumbling to tame the ricochet of thoughts cascading through his mind, he gave no thought to controlling the physiology of his reaction and knew Derek could smell and hear it. He swallowed trying to calm himself.

" _ Please,” _ Derek begged. Hot and desperate against his neck. _ “Let me hear it? _ "

Stiles shuddered, so Derek was aware of when Stiles controlled his heartbeat. Would make lying about anything extremely difficult in the future. Max had never been able to tell but Max had also not identified Stiles as his mate.

Stiles wiggled only to have Derek press into him and drag his hands together above his head. A spike of arousal and terror went through him, but Derek didn't seem interested in hurting him and only pressed his wrists together with the flat of his palm. He could have gotten away if he wanted, Derek had given him an easy out. But again, Derek had no interest in hurting him, just getting a hand beneath his clothing, dragging his scent across his body. Blunt fingernails dragged hot lines across his abdomen and Stiles cried out, jerking at the acute arousal that was making his pants uncomfortable.

"Derek..."

Power surged into him, but it was all too primal and too focused elsewhere to try and utilize. Derek's wolf was growling, crawling alongside his own spirit and tumbling with it, it felt like he was being touched everywhere at once so tender and so possessive that he moaned and writhed against the feeling only to have Derek re assert his physical presence and compound the problem. 

"Derek," he breathed. "I can't--"

"A little more, Stiles. I promise."

The wave of arousal made Derek's head spin, he should have known it would happen since Stiles was still a teenager... a never been touched, teenager  but it was the growing feeling of safety and pleasure that spurred him on, demanding that he do more until Stiles felt safe, and warm--content and happy beyond all things.

He heard his heart stutter and Derek pushed up against him, sliding his hands against Stiles’s bare skin, pressing himself against him, rubbing his face against Stiles’s neck. Arousal was thick, a heat to Stiles’s  scent that wasn't always there but getting stronger as gasps escaped from him. Having his soul and body scented had to be a new experience, Derek almost came at the thought of what else he would do to Stiles when given the chance.

"D-Derek..." 

His eyes squeezed shut, but that only brought Derek’s  thoughts into sharper relief and made them pour into Stiles  psyche that much easier. Hands, tongue, so much, too much, god ,more more more, Derek’s  eyes, fingerprint marks covering pale skin and blinding-

Stiles screamed his whole body seizing  before crumpling to the ground. Derek released his hands to catch him around the waist.

The wave of pride and satisfaction was almost startling, but it was the sudden burst of roaring silence and uncontrollable, unexplainable, unintelligible pleasure that made him pause. Stiles’s roar was almost of panic, but the shuddering breaths after that definitely sounded like panic. He scooped the other up and rushed him to the couch, trying to get a good look at him. Flushed face, pupils blown, his heart danced the samba, his eyes were squeezed shut and he was shaking, not moving otherwise.

"Stiles?" He ventured. "Are you alright?"

The world came back to him slowly and surely through darkness and pleasure. And he saw Derek, bathed in morning light growing more defined and handsome with every second, his eyes a mix of yellow and hazel green, more green than gold...he was worried.

"Warn me first," Stiles said, unable to move and barely looking at him.

"I did,” he said. “Are you alright?"

Stiles blinked slowly,"You should put that on your resume."

Derek frowned, confused until the haze of panicked concern dropped and he could smell...Stiles...wet, sated, pliant on the couch. His arousal thick in the air and he couldn’t help the grin carving its way on to his face feeling Stiles shake with the aftershocks.

"I've never come in my pants before,"Stiles said with wonder. "Go ahead, preen."

Derek’s mouth kicked up just a bit before he leaned forward to lay his head on the other's chest listening to the slow of the other's heart, the natural ease of tension until Stiles fell asleep. His wolf rumbled low in appreciation and pride as he breathed in the scent of Stiles and him and visceral and spiritual pleasure. It was intoxicating and heady and comforting in some odd way.

He didn't  let Stiles sleep there but lifted him up and carried him up the stairs to lay him down on the bed gently, pulling the covers over him and turning to leave.

"Derek..." Stiles mumbled, turning over. "If you leave after making me embarrass myself I will never make you steak again."

He laughed as one whiskey coffee eye looked at him. Not one needed to be told again, Derek slid into bed beside him,instantly raising the temperature beneath the sheets significantly.

Stiles wakes up hours later, feeling refreshed. He borrows Derek's shower and puts on Derek's clothes from high school, partially in the hope to stave off another need to scent him, but partially because he likes the idea of wearing Derek's clothing. They were getting closer and more than that the easy feeling between them had shifted only a little... getting hotter, closer, it was almost dizzying. 

They go play with the kids before Stiles gets called back to the Condo that Liam has designated for translation of Hale books. It’s been a slow and steady march to getting everything translated and checked for accuracy, typed up and hosted somewhere useful. Liam added it on to the Hale Pack website as Lycan general information after the Lycan Elders wouldn’t accept it to add to their literature. Stiles didn’t bother to tell them not to fight it as it was clear that both Liam and Derek weren’t really interested in turning over any information to the organization that seemed to care more about playing nice with others than actually helping the people they were supposed to be helping. 

When he comes back, Derek is still asleep. Stiles showered in the main bathroom before walking into Derek’s living room to find Derek awake and milling about. When he turns it’s slow, predatory and he’s quickly moving towards Stiles. Before Stiles can register his speed, he’s in Stiles's personal space, crowding him against the wall.

"Will you let me?"

Stiles swallows, "Is this going to be a thing?"

His eyes begin to bleed red and the words are a low, sensual rumble, "Mine."

Stiles feels the possession at the core of him and almost quakes at the ideas that are running through his mind, he's not sure if Derek is in control or not but he bets not and swallows. 

"Der'aq?"

Derek growls low and frustrated and Stiles shakes at the realization that Der'aq hasn't taken over, it's the both of them together...looking at him.

"Mine, "Derek says again. "Will you let me?"

Stiles doesn't know what he plans to do, but he bets its scenting because, despite the shower, he smells like so many other people. Logically, he could really use a shot of pure feel-good after the crap week he’s had. No leads and no help for finding the asshole that tried to carve him up, no idea about what could have been the end goal and everyone seemed to be treating him with kid gloves since his state after their trip to Texas got around.

_ Don’t be a chicken, Stiles. Don’t be a chicken... _

"If you aren't... going to stop there."

Derek's eyes are fully red now and he advances to pull Stiles against him into a kiss that makes his head dizzy and drag him and stumble towards the stairs hurriedly. Their lips mesh but they aren't neat or focused kisses, just desperate and needy and Stiles feels like he's about to shake right out of his skin at every hot pass of Derek's hands over his waist. He feels his shirt being pulled up and off, lucky that he was wearing a t-shirt and not the button down he'd planned on. It would never have survived, he was sure. 

Derek gets his hands around Stiles’s naked waist, his tongue in his mouth and backs him up the stairs. Quick hurried movements , but not fast enough for him. Stiles’s hands are working on his belt buckle and Derek is growling at him to hurry up. His wolf couldn’t wait any longer. The need was tearing at the edges of his control, pressing on his already short fuze--if they weren’t naked within the next few seconds, the claws would come out and do the work for them both.

Stiles can’t get his hands to work so when they reach Derek’s room he yelps as the bed leaps up to catch him… or maybe Derek has just pushed him down. He sits up to catch Derek's hips with his hands as he practically falls onto him, pushing him down as Stiles pulls his lips over his own again. Shaking in his pale skin at the scrape of the wolf’s phantom claws across his skin. They’re light and possessive, matching the look of awe and ownership in Derek’s eyes.

_ Mine _ , he hears in his head and Stiles swallows as Derek moves back and yanks his jeans down, growling that his underwear had stayed in place before pulling them off as well with a sickening rip.

“Hey—”

His voice breaks off as Derek growls at him and Stiles licks his lips nervously, looking between his half-erection and Derek’s eyes that were boring into his own. 

"No farther than you want," Derek said, roughly looking up at him. He was sure the other had paused to reassure him because of the tattoo of his heart.

Though he could, he had become accustomed to not controlling it when he was alone with Derek. He also found that he just didn’t have the focus to do so since Derek was so very, very, good at distracting him with his hormones.

"Your wolf..."

"We would never do that to anyone..."

While nice to hear that Derek, physically and spiritually, wasn't a rapist, he couldn't help but think that there was something more to it than that.

"More sexing, less talking," Stiles said, but before he could sit up, Derek's hand was on his chest, pressing him flat to the bed. 

"As you wish," he rumbled and Stiles swore he was actually a sex god, not a lycan. 

The wicked red gleam in his eyes as he licked a hot line from Stiles’s hip to the inside of his thigh made him squirm. All the urgency had vanished it seemed as Derek took his time, tasting Stiles’s skin in long sinful licks across his body,working his way up one side and then down the other. His whole body was flushing now and needy, precum sluicing down to his lips where Derek lapped at it with long moans of ecstasy. 

"Derek, please..."

He had all night to take Stiles apart and he wanted it to be good, especially since it was Stiles’s first time. He wanted it to sink into his mind until Stiles was begging him to lay a solid claim on him. 

"Easy or you won't last the night."

A rush of lascivious images stormed Stiles’s mind. Ransacked his logic and protests, defiled all sense of urgency and captured him completely.

" _ Yes _ ... "

Derek smiles at that, licks long and wet before taking him in his mouth. His entire body seized and holy  _ fuck _ he didn't think that anything would ever feel so mind-numbingly good. He hears himself cry out and fight against the feeling, but Derek is patient, slow, forgiving, going slow and letting the tension build until he's a trembling mess on his bed begging something of Derek as he takes his time swallowing Stiles deeply, coaxing him through his orgasm as slow and pleasurably as possible. 

"Derek... Der'aq... Derek...Der'aq..."

Derek grins, pulling off Stiles to get his jeans off and roll Stiles over as he's still shaking. Der'aq still assaulted his spiritual presence, embracing, sinking into it, pulling it closer. It was feeling that Stiles couldn't quite name and was only made more intense by the physical strain Derek was placing on him. He was so possessed and dizzy, every inch of him feeling Der'aq, and by extension, Derek's presence. He felt himself being pulled gently to his knees, a few pillows beneath his hips and Derek's warm hand, stroking the back of his neck and through his hair as he shook. Warm, wet kisses trailed down his back.

"Derek... I can't..."

"Yes, you can," he whispered. "Let me make it blindingly good for you."

Stiles shook his head, "You're going to kill me."

Derek smiled, "No, just love you."

He would have melted, really he would have except Derek was moving again and there was something wet slide over the curve of his ass along with Derek's hand. 

"Derek?" It came out nervous and excited. Derek hushed him, placing one hand in between Stiles's shoulder blade and letting Der'aq step out to add a different sort of pressure at the back of Stiles's neck before sliding his tongue between Stiles's cheeks. 

There was a wail and Stiles scrambling against the sensation, but he couldn't move, moaning low and deep as Derek continued to lick  and press against the tight ring of muscle until it gave way. With a groan, his parted Stiles's cheeks and thrust his tongue in with abandon. His body fluttered, trembling around Derek's tongue as he forced more slickness, more heat, and the wriggling solidness of his tongue into Stiles. 

Stiles could only hold on for dear life, coming again and again from the feeling of Der'aq possessive hold on the back of his neck and Derek's insistent tongue and fingers working him open so damn slowly he didn't understand how Derek had the patience for it. 

"Mine, mine... mine..." He heard with every thrust of Derek's tongue into him, every finger, every growled until he was just a mess of sensory information and Derek loomed behind him, slicked up, condom on, and shaking. 

"Stiles, do you want this?"

He nodded slowly and silent, "Please..."

Derek's heart stuttered feeling the response in his soul:  _ Yours _ . Der'aq growled low bearing down to place more pressure and sink his claws into Stiles's soul. Not quite mating deep but enough to anchor him, to make him known, to draw more of that feeling and it hit Derek like a freight train, images, and desire wants and yours yours yours Derek Der'aq yours yours yours take me take me now now now storming through him. 

Derek took in a shuddering breath, easing his hand onto the back of Stiles's neck, just where Deraq sunk in his claws and slid into Stiles's welcoming heat so slowly Stiles was sobbing by the time Derek got half way in. 

"Derek," he whined.

"I have you," Derek promised, stroking, sinking into him slowly. "I'll give it to you... all of it... so deep you'll feel it forever, to the core of you, Stiles. To the deepest darkest places of you, I swear. I want them. All of them. I want to sink my claws and fangs into every part of you-- _ mine _ ."

Stiles shuddered, but as he felt the points where Der'aq claws slipped and edged deeper he had a feeling that maybe Derek had already managed that and this was just a foregone conclusion. He groaned as Derek's hips finally met his and he breathed deeply. He felt too open, too exposed, too raw for this to just be sex, to just be anything... Something was happening. 

"I'm not laying a claim on you," Derek said gruffly. "Not until you need it."

Need it?

"Yes," he said, drawing back and sliding back in. "Need it."

Breathless, Derek began to stroke into him, slow and deep, pressing Stiles's torso into the sheets as Derek slid in and out of him. So slow and so deep that if he wasn't keeping an eye on Der'aq he would have thought that he was definitely claiming him. 

"Derek," Stiles gasped. "I can't..."

"Yes, you can," Derek grunted, leaning over him sliding a hand around his waist, the other across his neck. Stiles dug his fingernails into Derek's forearm as Derek stroked into him. "Yes, you can. Just let it happen."

It was too much and Derek didn't understand. He wasn't built to handle sex like this. Der'aq's claws were so deep, marking but not claiming his spirit making Der'aq known to it as Derek stroked into his body, gliding across that spot of pleasure inside with unerring accuracy until it was just a long wave of pleasure, slow, inexhaustible pleasure that Stiles could do nothing more than exist in and hope that when he came out of it, he remembered that there was the world beyond this bedroom, beyond the shaking, beyond the pleasure. Beyond  _ Derek. _


	17. No Need To Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Post sexy times!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My goodness everyone, I'm so sorry! We haven't had internet for two weeks (stupid Comcast!) and that's really thrown a huge wrench in my writing/posting plans. I am still striving for the end of August but that may not happen. We'll see.
> 
> Seems like I'll be pumping out thousands upon thousands of words for the next... three days. :(

Derek knew he'd come at least once by the time Stiles had blacked out which meant that Stiles had come at least five times if not more. His orgasm had crashed over him, shaking his world and his mindset so deep he was almost convinced that there had been an earthquake. But the need, the desperate need coming from Stiles, flooding his mind, wouldn't let him stop until the younger's mind went to the quiet abyss of unconsciousness. He pulled out slowly, though he'd lubed and prepared Stiles more than enough, the boy was human (at least for now) and probably would be sore in--later that day.

Derek felt his mouth twitch, seeing the bright lights of the day coming through the window. They'd been at it since the night before it seemed well into the day... No wonder Stiles passed out.  Derek, on the other hand, felt revitalized, refreshed even despite the aches of overworked muscles. He managed to get out of bed and clean them both up before getting back into bed with a glass of water to set on the bedside table. He'd drunk at least four while downstairs and had no doubt that Stiles would want at least one when he woke up. 

Stiles didn't wake up until that night with his body splayed across Derek's body, curled up against him and contentedly warm with the distinct feeling that someone had massaged him. His muscles felt relaxed and he was clean.

"Hey," Derek said looking at him as Stiles managed to lift his head to look at him. 

It was dark outside, Derek's eyes were bright and sated looking at him possessively and gently. 

"How are you feeling?"

Stiles swallowed, considering a snarky reply but nothing came, his mind was empty, quiet and his throat tingled.

"Fine," he said softly.

Derek nodded, stroking his face Stiles followed the warmth with his cheek and waited. 

"It's okay," he whispered. "I won't leave you. I know it was pretty intense...Did I hurt you?"

Stiles shook his head, half mentally incapacitated and unable to say much else. He wasn't in pain, there was a lightness and an awareness something warm in his chest but that was all. 

"No pain..."

"Good," Derek sat up, lifting Stiles up with him, gently and sure to carry Stiles's full weight before lifting a cup to his lips. "Drink."

He sipped at first and began to gulp next, emptying it quickly without catching his breath.  Then there was food and Derek told him that he'd been asleep for a full day.

Stiles nodded slowly, "I see. You're preening right now aren't you?"

Derek shook his head, "I was earlier, but now... I just want to make sure you're alright."

"And Der'aq?"

"He's content for now... just... don't expect my sex drive to lessen."

He blew out a breath, "I'm going to have to workout a lot more aren't I?"

Derek snorted, not that they didn't already work out a lot, but if that is what Stiles needed to say to make things make sense for him, so be it.

*

When he left the office, he felt the shifting of the wind first, dodging around the man’s fist, to slide away from the group that had been with him. 

A young woman with dark hair, vaguely familiar, said “Dad!” and stepped between them before Derek had even considered attacking back. 

The man was Chris Argent and he was just what Derek needed today after dealing with Layla, Deaton, and the whole Alliance board about his status as an Agent and finding out that the suit against him in regards to Kate Argent had not been dropped. They were considering removing him from service because of his Alpha status. They wanted to send him to the front lines with all the other alphas that had no place in civilized politics. 

While Der'aq had urged him to let loose and tear them apart at the idea, he'd settled for telling them that they’d lose at least three good agents by doing that and told them to watch their track record, watch them. Put them on missions if they’d like before walking out and hoping to Ravi that he could just steal some alone time with Stiles.

That obviously wasn’t going to happen.

“A monster like you is still an agent? The Alliance must be out of their minds!” Chris growled. 

The Argent family, on the whole, had gone into service in an attempt to bury their pasts as lycan killers. The amount of blood on that family’s hands of the lycan variety made Derek’s stomach twist. As the son of the Alpha of the Hale pack, he’d been assigned to Kate as an act of peace between the families… He’d stuck it out because his mother told him how important it was to forgive, a tenant of the cult of Ravi, but even then he’d realized what sort of monster Kate could be and eventually realized exactly what kind of monster she was, never mind the kind of monster she'd made of him.

He was still making peace with that even if he'd laid to rest what she'd done to him. Derek shoved his hands in his pockets, not entirely sure what he was supposed to do, but a part of him regarded the three of them with a coolness that astonished him. A few months ago the name “Argent” would have brought all of his fight or flight instincts to the surface, but now, he only watched them with a disinterest and a patience. He guessed therapy and a change of pace had been the best medicine for it.

“I could write you up for that,” he said. “Assaulting another agent at the embassy.”

“With the suit still on the books, it’ll be written off as a provocation,” Chris said with a snort. “And I’m more than willing to pump your ass full of wolfsbane for what you did to my sister—"

“Dad!” Allison said. Allison… he remembered meeting her once looking at her now, she was the little girl that had been on the other side of his cage in France. 

She’d been a lot younger and he wondered if she remembered. Her eyes flickered across his face and slowly the realization came, her heart sped up and her eyes grew sad.

“You…”

“She was killed on a mission,” Derek said, cutting her off and not letting the sting of her pity get to him. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You were supposed to protect her!” Chris growled. “You were partners—for all the lycan talk about pack—“

“Dad,” Allison cut in. Derek shook his head.

“Let him talk, I get the feeling that he’s been meaning to say this for a long time.”

And Chris and Gerard set in, yelling at him demanding answers, but Derek knew it was just pain and rage and years of what ifs and not knowing. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure if they were prepared to hear the truth…The real truth about their beloved Kate. 

“Maybe we should take this into a room and not the foyer,” Derek suggested. “Good as time as any to try and settle a suit this long on the books.”

Allison swallowed as the headed to the room. How could he just suggest that he, one lycan, go into a closed off magic room with three members of the argent family? Was he crazy? Chris went into the room, Gerard as well and Derek took a seat, the only one that seemed to be calm other than Allison. 

There was a deep acrimony between Derek and the Argents because of Kate, but Alison was willing to listen, to hear, and maybe even believe what Derek had to say about Kate if only because Argents had once been lycan hunters and in the new age had been turned into Handlers. She knew how cruel her family could be, and how prejudice they were, and did not blame him for glaring ruthlessly at them all. It helped that she remembered seeing him in a cage when she'd gone to visit... bright hazel eyes staring out into nothing, vacant and purposeless.

“Tell us,” she said. “What happened to Kate?... really.”

After all, he deserved a chance to vindicate himself and Derek took a deep breath. 

“What I say won’t matter will it?” Derek asked. “If I tell you what happened that night… She’s still gone.”

Chris growled, “What happened?”

“I’m trying to spare you,” Derek said. “Sometimes memories of the dead shouldn’t be tainted with the truth.”

Gerard scoffed, “Don’t pull that crap with me! She was my daughter, there is nothing you could say that could taint my memory of her, you monster! Just own up to your own negligence. “

Derek smiled sadly, “Allison… what did you see when you came to visit your Aunt in France.”

Allison licked her lips and Chris and Gerard looked at her and then to Derek, “What the hell does she have to do with this?”

“She’s your last warning before you get the truth... Allison.”

“I… I never met Kate’s partner… She didn’t… introduce him… There was a lycan… a teenager in a cage made of mountain ash and wolfsbane in her apartment… She said that he was… a pet.”

Chris blinked and looked at Derek then to his daughter, “What are you saying?”

“I… didn’t recognize him then… but… but it was Derek…”

Chris’s eyes widened and they rolled slowly to Derek who hadn’t managed to look smug or anything in particular. There was barely an apprehension, an odd strength there as if he was already resigned to whatever was going to be said. Gerard, in his old age, looked at Derek with a sneer.

“You are an animal. She was probably concerned—“

“Dad,” Chris started and took a seat. “Tell me.”

Derek let out a breath and told him in barely veiled terms that Kate was a terrible person and treated him as less than human. Somewhere in the middle, Gerard stormed out, right around the time of the Hale Fire. Then there was Russia and France and the impromptu meeting with Allison. He spared them the details of exactly what Kate was planning to do to him beyond “bargaining with poachers” to the moment he snapped. All of the evidence of that night, most of which they’d seen, seemed to stitch together… the journal they found, the patterns of the marks. They weren’t lycan if anything Kate was killed purely by human means… the other bodies found had been torn apart with magic, but the lycan traces were minimal at best despite all the blood.

Gerard stormed out soon after while Chris and Allison stared at him, pale and haunted. When they seemed to come back to themselves, DerekHe walked Chris and Allison to the foyer of the embassy.

“Were you… ever going to tell the truth? To the Alliance? To us?”

“No,” Derek said. “They didn’t care enough to stop it, they surely wouldn’t care enough to set the record straight… And I know what it means to lose family. To have that along with the truth would have been too much.”

Chris nodded, he wasn’t sure what he would have done that first few months after they shipped Kate’s body back to Beacon Hills. He definitely wouldn’t be as calm as he was now. Either way, Derek left them to their devices, climbing into his car and heading towards Moonlight Revival. At the very least, he would have something new to say in his session with Julia. 

She smiled as he walked into the building, meeting him at the front desk as per usual

“You look like you have things to say…”

He nodded, “Definitely things to say…”

She nodded, “Good. Let’s go for a walk.”

*

When Stiles came to visit, it was almost an apocalyptic event. For one, he tended not to come visit his Dad at home because it was like a black hole. He’d get comfortable surrounded by the place he grew up and he wouldn’t want to leave. The longing and the sadness would be too much, weighing him down--dragging him down into the sofa and binding him there.

Today was the same except there was something infinitely worse about today: his father was depressed. How did he know? Well, the garage was open and he was going through boxes. He was cleaning and there was no way in hell something wasn’t wrong with John Stilinski if he was cleaning _especially_ the garage. 

“Dad?” Stiles started coming up the lawn. 

He was sitting on a crate going through a box of Stiles’s old awards, the ones that his mother insisted that they keep. His hands were shaking, the way they used to right before he reached for the bottle. That wasn’t good.

“Dad?”

John looked up, his eyes lightening, “Stiles… I didn’t realize you were coming to visit.”

Stiles nodded, “Surprise. A free surprise visit from me… the apocalypse isn’t happening, I haven’t knocked anyone up—promise.”

John laughed, standing to hug him a little too tight before turning, “Come on in.”

“Dad what’s going on?”

“I just figured I should get the house together since I’m retiring.”

Stiles’s jaw dropped, “Retiring?”

He nodded, “Think it’ll be good for me. Go retire, meet some people… have a life.”

Stiles sputtered following him into the house and watching him. He knew that his father was lying, doing his best to put him on a brave front. Retiring? Had they threatened him? Was this just another part of the insanity that Alliance was calling “persuasion”? He didn’t ask but fussed about the contents of the man’s fridge before dragging him to the grocery store to stock up. 

“How are you going to enjoy your retirement with an empty fridge? And go knows I can’t trust you to cook anything healthy. ”

John laughed and it was the oddest father son excursion they’d ever had with them both dancing around the truth. Not that all of their father-son excursions weren’t odd. Nights in his patrol car, impromptu ridealongs and the like, but this was the strangest by far as Stiles was doing everything in his power not to ask the question on the edge of his tongue.

“They’re holding some sort of shindig for me at the precinct,” John said. “Or something like that. I think it’s actually just a chance to get me drunk.”

Stiles snorted, “Of course, so they can ask you all the embarrassing questions. It’ll be their last time to do so after all before you’re caught up in the whirlwinds of beach lounging and mai tai sipping.”

John snorts, never let it be said that his kid didn’t have a sense of humor because Stiles did, in fact, have a sense of humor that scared even him sometimes at how witty and precise it could be. 

When Stiles bade his goodbye, he has the worst feeling in the world. He calls every deputy he knows to get the lowdown on what’s going on. None of them have much to say beyond the fact that some hotshot announced the Sheriff’s replacement instead of John and John hadn't said a word about it. 

That wasn’t good, in light of everything, he knew that. That’s how he found himself on Derek’s couch, reading old lycan texts with far too much focus when Derek came home from therapy. His scent heavy, nervous, and _stressed_  in the air.

“Hey,” he greeted. “You alright?”

“The Alliance is replacing my father as the Sheriff…. and they’ve covering it up as a retirement.”

Derek nodded slowly and sat down to hear the whole story and the fact that they were apparently convinced that John was involved with some sort of  corruption going on at the station and he wasn’t the only one being forced out. A lot of good deputies were too while the suspicious ones were actually being kept on. Derek could only take Stiles’s hand and drag him to bed for some cuddling to try and ease his nerves.

“It’s going to be alright…We’ll figure it out.”

"This is just the beginning isn't it?"

Derek sighed, pressing a kiss to Stiles's head, "Get some rest, Stiles. Just rest."


	18. When He's Holding Me, I Already Know,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trouble in paradise

Stiles groaned, flailing as Derek pulled him down and made quick work of getting him naked. It’s been like this alot recently. This inability to keep their hands off one another since John's departure from the station had been announced. Tonight was a special occasion: they’d both nearly gotten killed despite wearing their protective vests. Whatever spells that mage pair were casting were way beyond the protection of the vests they’d been given. Stiles actually had to use both guns, spark and Alliance issued, in the fight… and Derek actually had to wield a gun. It had been sexy in some weird way to see him like that. Apparently, becoming an Alpha made his accuracy even better and his judgment sounder. They'd all made it out alive, a little banged up from being thrown around in gusts of power, but alive. They were quickly being known as the “Alpha Pack” in the embassy, earning congratulations for every crazy mission they'd finished alive and by the books. 

Though the stellar start to his first year on the force was fantastic, he knew that the Alliance were really just fucking with them, trying to pressure Derek out of the Alliance and into the Lycan Elder’s Alpha programs…. Or the front line of the magic wastelands. It wasn’t working, but perhaps it could be. At some point, Derek's alpha instincts to protect his Pack would kick in too strong to be ignored. He'd have to make the decision when it came and Stiles prayed that it wouldn't be anytime soon. 

They needed Derek here and Derek needed to be around Pack more than the Alliance or the Lycan Elders had to have their way.

In any case, it was like this after every near-death case (more frequent than it should have been really). They had raw, life-affirming mind blowing sex at either Stiles’s or Derek’s place of residence. Tonight, they were at the Hale Estate. Stiles had been in Derek’s passenger seat, squirming as the older man slid his hands into Stiles's jeans. Hot, large hands desperate to touch him, stealing caresses and forcing his hand into Stiles’s underwear to grip him and stroke him into hardness.

Not that it ever took long, but Derek had gotten his hands in Stiles’s pants closer to the Hale house than usual, so rather than him getting off in the car, Stiles had to stumble out of the car hard with his pants undone. Derek was always there by the time he climbed out and guiding him towards the house with quick, impatient strides until they were practically running to get inside.

It usually started off slow with them passing hands over every part of each other to make sure they were still whole, undressing as they headed up the stairs to the lofted bedroom of the cottage. But tonight, Derek hadn’t done any of that, when the door closed, he’d pushed Stiles up against the wall, lifting him to settle his full weight on Derek’s hips and Derek’s hands gripping his ass. The kiss was more passion than technique with Stiles’s hands in Derek’s hair, carding through the strands, clenching them as Derek ground up against him. He kept himself aloft by the sheer strength of his thighs and Derek’s hands on his ass to pull his blazer off, undo his gun holster so it clattered to the ground, pull off his vest ,his t-shirt over his head in between sloppy wet kisses and Derek’s hot tongue on his neck, his teeth nipping at pale flesh until it bloomed red.

“Off, Stiles. Get it all off. _ Now. _ ” Derek growled, his eyes flashing as Stiles worked as fast as his shaking hands would let him.

Adrenaline, endorphins and all those feel good hormones were flooding his already overwrought brain. Everyone had come out alive and relatively uninjured. Stiles had a scratch, but with Derek so near it had healed almost instantaneously.

“ _ Derek… need-- _ ”

Tongue in his mouth, teeth on his neck, he cursed as Derek bumped them into a wall, lust-drunk and caught in Stiles’s scent, mouthing along his neck. Derek toed off his boots as he carried Stiles to the stairs, marching and encouraging Stiles to get his holster off. Derek sat on the bed and resituated Stiles in his lap for just a moment more before he rolled them over onto the bed, beginning the heated dance of need and love and want and so many emotions shaking through them. 

_ Mine. Together. Alive.  _

Derek kissed his shoulder, reminding Stiles of the bruise that had been there before as Stiles’s hand passed over Derek’s side where the spell had barely glanced off. When Derek slid into him and rolled them over so Stiles was on top, Stiles shook and felt his core quake at the picture he made, glowing red eyes focused on him with so much desire it made his entire body hot.

“Ride me,” Derek said, placing his hands on his hips. A new position they hadn’t really gotten to try before, he bet Derek had dared a trip into his mind to find this particular gem. Derek had fucked him against his own front door at some point, his calves over his shoulders and lips crushed together, but never like this. Before Stiles could falter at the order, Derek’s hands were on his hips.

“I’ll teach you,” Derek said gently, sliding them towards the edge of the bed so the whole of Stiles’s weight rested on his hips and thighs. The angle was too good and as Derek began to move Stiles’s hips over him, he understood why they said this was the best position for whoever was being penetrated as Derek’s cock nudged and prodded somewhere not quite deeper, but different than any other spot Derek had hit before.

“Oh… fuck…” He gasped, slowly getting the rhythm as Derek licked up his neck and mouthed hickeys into his skin that vanished before he could fully get them. 

This close, they were always swapping power back and forth usually resulting in Stiles healing quickly and Derek having an insanely good idea of what Stiles was feeling. It was the only time really that Derek could step into Stiles’s mind without a headache. He was getting better at sorting through Stiles’s organized chaos, but his threshold was usually about five minutes before his head started hurting… But like this, so deep in Stiles that he couldn’t breathe, he could stay in Stiles’s mind for hours, pleasing him, answering every little stray kinky thought as they came until he couldn’t think any longer. It was a bit addicting to constantly know what Stiles wanted and being able to give it to him immediately. It was like branding Stiles as his and making sure that Stiles recognized the brand, so damn perfect that it was heady and he just couldn’t stop. But more than that having Stiles ride him was more than he could take. 

“You ride me so damn well,” Derek breathed against his neck as Stiles’s hips rolled forward and took him deeper. Stiles’s head tilted back. “Harder--like you need it, Stiles.”

“Need it,” he breathed and Derek grinned. He loved it when Stiles got like that. He could get him to say anything, the dirtiest things spilled from his mouth and it was all a steady stroke to his wolf’s ego. 

_Please his mate_ , please him beyond a doubt until Stiles couldn’t think beyond Derek in him. He hadn’t realized how much those thoughts controlled his actions as of late, but he knew when they were like this, this was all he could think of.

“Need it, need it, Derek.”

“Show me,” Derek growled at him earning a shocking sharp snap of his hips and Stiles’ eyes glowing red in the darkness of the room. 

_Oh…_

He hadn’t thought of that… but he felt everything in him growl in satisfaction. When had they become so close that Stiles could even tap into his Alpha powers… or was he? He wasn’t sure.

“Show me exactly how much you need it. Show me, Stiles.”

Another snap of his hips and Derek’s groan before Stiles had rocked them off the bed with the snaps of his hips, growling and pushing Derek onto the ground and continuing to ride his cock with abandon. Panting, _yours, yours, yours, yours, yours_ …so frantic along with the filthiest running commentary on how it felt in his mind. 

“So good.”

“Love it when you fuck me.”

“Need it Derek.”

“I need it. Give it to me. Please.”

“Fuck me like I’m yours. Mark me,  _ ruin  _ me, Alpha.”

Derek held on to Stiles’s hips for dear life as Stiles fucked them both into oblivion, forcing them so far over the edge that they were falling and falling again and still Stiles hadn’t stopped, too deep in Derek’s mind to stop even as it’s becoming too much for either of them physically, too sensitive, too deep.

“Derek!” He screamed, throwing his head back. Rather than a sound from Stiles, there was a higher pitched, unearthly scream sliding out of his mouth. The lights flickered, surged and exploded into shimmering glass throughout the cottage. The scream stopped. The world shook and everything seemed to be trembling.

Derek isn’t so far gone not to notice that this time, there was definitely an earthquake. The clatter of things falling off the dresser is proof enough. The others had been mild tremors, this felt like a real one and the fact that all the lights had exploded into fine powder was something as well. The scream that hadn't truly been of this world...

Stiles’s eyes were glowing a violent cyan-blue as he swooned and collapsed onto Derek. He swallowed, catching him gently and kissed the sleeping man's head, stroking his hair and panting. 

_What the hell was that?_

The doorbell rang and Derek did his best to pull himself free of Stiles’s body, laying him down and grabbing something to quickly wash the smell of sweat and come and death off his skin before scrambling for clothing and answering the door. It was Jordan looking at him, carrying a darkened flashlight in his hand.

“Hey Uncle Derek, all the lights went out. Are they out for you too? Also, you have any batteries?”

Derek swallowed and looked towards the house with a nod, “I’ll be there in a second. Probably just tripped a fuse. I’ll see if I have any.”

Jordan nodded before Derek stepped back into the house and rushed upstairs to where Stiles was lying. Der’aq was curled up beside him with a low rumble. Stiles was out for the night. Derek would have to speak to him when he got back as he moved to investigate the piles of glowing sand underneath all the light fixtures everywhere. Being that he set up the Hale Estate to run on telluric currents and magic… There was no reason that a power surge would have done that… It would have had to have been a magic surge…Which meant that he was going to have a very long conversation with Stiles. 

Derek did have a stash of batteries to carry with him. He went to the breaker box to reset the circuits before heading back to the cottage and crawling into bed with Stiles who is still too inundated with raw power and orgasm to be awake. He doesn’t wake up for another ten hours and by then Derek has already made breakfast for the whole house (a usual after near-death experience ritual), played with kids, fed a baby or two and worked out. 

Stiles yawns, sitting up as Derek is screwing in new light bulbs.

“Morning…”

Derek grins, “It’s two o’clock actually.”

Stiles stretches and shrugs, his long pale body reaching up before getting out of bed and shuffling closer to see what Derek is doing. 

“What’s with the light bulbs?”

“They were all blown out last night,” he said looking at Stiles who shrinks back at the suspicious expression.

“What?”

“The house is on a magic system,” he said. “The magic the pack exudes, the land, everything feeding into it… There was no way a regular power surge could have done that.”

Stiles blinks and he steps back as Derek steps forward, “A magic surge however—“

“I think I should get going,” Stiles said with a nod. “Don’t worry about dropping me off, I’ll uh… walk. Yeah. I’ll walk. I could use it—“

“Stiles,” Derek growled, grabbing him by the wrist to make him stop. “You can’t just escape from me like that. What happened?”

“Nothing! I didn’t do anything!”

Which for a change was entirely true. He hadn’t done anything… he was sure of that. He had to be sure—

Derek stiffens and looks at him and Stiles knows for sure that his scent has changed, but then Stiles is getting dressed and not offering any explanation, pulling on his holster, no bothering to wash up and heading downstairs. Derek grabbed his keys and caught Stiles by the arm before the man had a chance to walk past Derek's car.

“I’m not letting you walk back to your apartment. Get in.”

Stiles obeyed and they spend the entire ride in that awkward silence because Derek knows Stiles is running, hiding even and though Stiles made him promise not to hide or run, he hadn’t asked the same of Stiles. Hell, he hadn’t thought it would really be a problem until now. 

“Are you going to continue to try and hide the way you’re reacting or are we going to talk?”

“See you tomorrow Derek,” Stiles says and climbs out of the Camaro, hustling to the stairs and it takes everything in him to stop himself from running after Stiles and demanding answers. He doesn’t pull on their connection to enter Stiles’s mind, he doesn't want to push, but he needs to know. 

It goes on like that for a week of barely there touches, before Derek says something he shouldn’t have said, caught somewhere between frustration and worry. Stiles is his mate and it's grating on every instinct he possessed to have this wall between them. They'd had another crazy mission tonight and while Stiles had let Derek drive him to the Hale Estate, he'd had a very large "Don't Touch Me" Sign flashing in bright neon in every posture and flinch since getting into Derek's car.

He tried to wait, to breathe through it but seeing Stiles come out of the shower. The large bruise on his side healing rapidly even though Derek knows that Stiles has more or less put a block on their connection leaving Der'aq to scratch at the wall in frustration and putting Derek on edge. 

“Why the hell can’t we talk about this? You think I want to steal your spark or something?”

Stiles gawked at him and Derek grits his teeth against the silence in Stiles’s brain and then the rising tide of angry words. Derek thinks Stiles believes that he would and Stiles can’t believe that he would ever say anything like that. He felt the wall getting thicker and Der'aq surged to the surface, his eyes glowing red with anger and panic.

_Don't go._

“Maybe there isn’t anything to talk about!”

_Love you. Talk to me..._

“You’re avoiding this and it isn’t going away.”

_Need you. Need you. Need you._

“Fuck you,” Stiles said and promptly begins to get dressed without drying off from his shower and marching out. Derek growled, chasing after him but he hit a solid wall of magic at the threshold of his front door that keeps him in the house. It isn't mountain ash but something else. 

Derek snapped. 

Roaring, claws out, scratching at the wall in desperation. 

_Let me out!_

_Let me in!_

It's loud enough to draw Stiles's attention and horror. His eyes are wide, his face loses all its color, his heart beat kicks up and everything in Derek wants to go to him… But the wall is there and Stiles is the only person that could take it down.

_Let me in._

It feels like forever, reigning in Der'aq calming down enough that his claws retreat, his fangs recede and there's nothing left but the glowing of his eyes to tell Stiles what sort of emotional state he's in. 

“Not going away,” is all he says before closing the door and listening to the sound of Stiles climbing into his jeep and go tearing down the driveway.


	19. What He Does To Me-- Takes My Breath Away,

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Library Incident

When Stiles arrives back at his apartment, his hands are shaking and he can’t even begin to stomach it at all. 

_ Fuck. _

Derek was right, there was no avoiding the fact that something was going. Something insane was happening to him and all the dread, guilt, and  _ anguish _ of the years settled hard and cold in his gut.

It couldn’t be. It had to be something else. There was no way that he… That he would have…

He grabbed his keys and tore back out the door, running down the stairs to get back into the Jeep and drive, hard and fast the Beacon Hills University library. He parked in a visitor’s spot, gave the receptionist his badge to give him access and went to the sixth floor where all of their magic books were. Thousands of years of knowledge sat on the mostly abandoned floor. He went straight to the stack about possession, grabbed as many books as he could before turning to the nearest table and beginning to speed read through them. They said mostly things that he knew already, having already been through a possession, but some other things that he noted with interest until he shoved aside the book. 

He wasn’t sure how long he was there for, only that he’d been through several shelves and not one of the books had any explanation for what could be happening with him. He tried the Druid section next, praying and hoping that there was something,  _ anything _ that would tell him what was happening him. 

His phone rang just as he was about to start on a new shelf. It was Derek telling him that he was at the librry to get him as they had patrol that night with Scott and Kira. Stiles took note of the book he was on and swallowed, walking down the elevator to where Derek stood in the lobby with Scott.

“Whoa,” Scott said lookign at him. “You look terrible.”

“I… just too revved to sleep,” he said lightly. “You know how that goes.”

Scott nodded and slung an arm around his shoulder, “We’ll get you some coffee or something on the way, kay? No driving for you.”

Stiles nodded shakily and allowed Scott to pull him along towards Derek’s Camaro. Stiles sat in the back, leaning against the window. His body was exhausted, but in reality, his brain was still going, flipping through pages and pages of reading for some sort of explanation. 

He isn’t lucky enough that patrol was uneventful. Rather than an easy cruising, Stiles ended up chasing a perp down an alleyway and when he’d reached out as a warning a bolt of lightning came shooting out hitting the man in the chest and officially incapacitating him with an angry sizzling mark on his chest. 

Scott had never seen Stiles so pale as he looked at his hand, shaking. Kira cuffed the man as Derek hauled him up and Stiles shook.

“Stiles? Buddy? You with me?”

He couldn’t hear him, his eyes widening as his legs gave out staring at his hand still shaking. He couldn’t… couldn’t-- _couldn’t breathe_. 

Not enough air as the surge of power richocheted around his nervous system, electric and sparkling. 

“Stiles? Hey! Breathe with me, Stiles. Breathe!”

He couldn’t have-- he couldn’t have… he  _ can’t _ be… it wasn’t possible. It shouldn’t have been possible. It should  _ never _ have been possible. There has to be... Has to be... Has to..

“I… I can’t…”

Derek turned, walking towards Stiles and stopping to place a hand on the back of his neck. He felt it like someone slamming on the breaks of his mind. When Stiles’s breath caught and he looked up at Derek. The steady warm hand ont he back of his neck, grounding him as he looked into Derek's eyes lost, scared and so very confused.

“Breathe,” Derek said calmly. “Before you pass out.”

Stiles swallowed thickly, but nodded, easing oxygen into his burning lungs and letting Scott help him back to the car. Scott took him home, careful to make sure he was comfortable before crashing on the couch to look after him for the night.

When Stiles crawled into bed, he’s holding his spark gun close to his chest. It’s warm in his hand as if he’d just loaded it with a live round and fired them all, but it’s soothing somehow. It keeps the screaming and shuddering away…

At least until he falls asleep. 

*

Scott woke up to the fact that Stiles was no longer in the apartment. How Stiles had managed that, he didn’t know, but he knew there was probably only one place that Stiles would go: the library, so he grabbed his keys and the spare key to the Jeep to walk downstairs to catch the bus to the library. As he thought, the Jeep was still parked out front. He checked in with the receptionist desk and followed Stiles’s scent up the stairs to the sixth floor. Through the smell of ancient tomes, he could smell Stiles’s scent, shifting a bit growing brighter or something, but he wasn’t sure. 

Stiles was at a table with a stack of books taller than he was sitting beside him, pouring over one. 

He watched for a moment, the way Stiles was so tense, so intent and his eyes flew across the page more absorbing the information than reading the words. There were sparks in his eyes, dancing with a golden light. 

“Hey buddy,” Scott said effectively breaking Stiles’s eye contact with the book to look up. 

The sparking light didn’t fade as Stiles looked at him blankly. 

“Stiles?” Scott asked pulling a chair across from him out and taking a seat. “You alright? You’re acting pretty strange…”

Stiles blinked and his eyes fell back to the book in his hands, moving over the pages. 

“Stiles?” He tried again, but Stiles didn’t react, flipping pages regularly before moving on to the next book. 

“Stiles?” he tried to reach out and hissed as the shock of heat and electricity that his fingers met with as Stiles continued to read unbothered by his presence or attempts to get his attention. 

Scott frowned and stood up calling Derek. 

“Derek? There’s something weird going on with Stiles…”

Derek sighed hearing what Scott had to say. He told him to call John and Melissa and he’d be there as soon as he could. 

Oddly, he arrived just as the two were pulling up. He led them to the sixth floor where Scott was pacing worriedly.

“What’s going on?” John asked, rubbing his face, clearly only partially awake. 

Scott only gestured to the books floating down the hall in an orderly line. One line heading towards Stiles’s desk, the other heading back to the shelves. John frowned stepping forward to peer around the corner to where Stiles was sitting surrounded by a circle of books, his eyes two bright orbs of gold in his skull as cyan light engulfed the books around him, swirling around Stiles slow and easy. The books moved along once the light had left them, flying back to the appropriate shelves to make way for the next book. 

“What the hell…” John started. 

“I’ve tried to call his name, to shake him out of it, but I keep getting shocked or burned… he’s not there… he just isn’t.”

Derek swallowed as John’s eyes widened and he went pale. While Derek didn’t know exactly why, but he had a feeling that he could guess given Stiles’s obvious magic show. Humans can't do magic like this. He looked at the books in the queue curiously. Alpha lycans, magic diseases, Druid lore, possessions… everything, but a book on sparks. Though Derek knew that there wasn’t a library anywhere, except maybe a Spark compound, that had anything useful in it, he also knew that the Druid compound where Alan lived, and perhaps Alan himself, would have ways of figuring out what was going on with Stiles. 

He also knew that Stiles would have known that, so why he was here, clearly in some sort of trance, as opposed to there meant that there was something about the whole ordeal that Stiles was trying to avoid at all costs. He'd literally checked out of reality and whatever he was beneath human had risen to the surface to enact whatever default Stiles's conscious had in mind...

Apparently, it was research.

Derek walked to Stiles, through the mess of books and pressed a hand to the back of his neck, letting Der’aq reach out to him as well.

“Stiles?” Derek asked softly. “Can you hear me?”

Stiles’s eyes looked up looking at him a little too intensely to be Stiles, but Derek takes it as a good sign and moved his hand to cup Stiles’s face, stroking his cheek with his thumb.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to find the answer right now. It can wait.”

Stiles said nothing staring up at him and watching him as Derek crouched in front of him.

“Put the books back and I’ll take you home, okay?”

There’s a twitch in his shoulder that makes Derek cup his hands around Stiles’s face and hushes him, “It’s okay. No questions, we won’t talk about it, just put the books back and I’ll take you home so you can sleep. Okay? I promise.”

He feels Der-aq nuzzling Stiles, whining for him to come out of the trance when the books start moving back towards the shelves, ordering themselves and relinquishing their glow. When the last one settled, Stiles blinked. His eyes returned to their normal whiskey color and promptly closed as Stiles passed out against Derek’s chest unconcious and paler than normal from the strain. Derek stroked his hair soothingly.

“Uil,” he said softly. “Uil.”

John came over to look between the two of them, looking a little haunted himself before Derek maneuvered him into his arms and told him to lead the way. Derek put Stiles in his car and followed John to his house, inside and up the stairs to Stiles’s old room as his apartment just wouldn’t be quiet enough for the kind of rest that Stiles would need. He pulled off Stiles’s clothes leaving him in his boxers and undershirt before pulling the blanket over him and kissing his temple. When he came downstairs, he found John sitting at the table a tumbler of whiskey in his hand and the bottle beside him.

“Derek,” John said before he could turn to leave. “Come sit with me. We need to talk.”

Derek had a feeling that he knew what the ex-Sheriff was going to say but he came to take a seat with John, taking the tumbler of whiskey that the man poured for him and listening to John tell him about Claudia, things that weren’t in her Handler file. Like the fact that she had attention issues when they were in training together, similiar to Stiles and just like Stiles, Adderrall didn’t work the way it was supposed to. 

“She never said that it could have been because she was a spark,” he said. “No one ever said…”

From what Derek knew of sparks, they were generally inherited from the family line, much like wolf spirits, with rare exceptions. From the way John was speaking, he thought that perhaps Stiles had inadvertently inherited his mother’s spark after her death, but that didn’t quite mesh with the fact that Stiles had had the same attention problems his entire life. If Derek had to guess, Stiles was a new spark, just like his mother had been, it was just that he’d received his spark a lot earlier in life than Claudia had. It may have been why it took her so long to ignite. 

He knew for sure that Stiles knew a lot more about sparks than he did, so what the major cause of his anxiety was still a complete mystery until John told him that Claudia had died without her spark. 

“Not as though it had been taken from her, but it left,” John said. “There was no reason why Claudia should have died that night… Her spark abandoned her… let her die.”

He shook his head, “Gods know I hoped Stiles wouldn’t have to go through being a spark...Don’t know how he’ll handle the thought the reason Claudia is dead is because it chose him.”

Derek swallowed looking at the tumbler and wondered, if perhaps, that was what the Sheriff thought all along. If maybe he thought that Claudia’s spark had been fractured or something at Stiles’s birth, split between the two and slowly siphoning itself into Stiles. 

How naive and utterly  _ ignorant _ of a thought. A spark wasn’t just some repository of sentient energy. It was a soul and souls didn’t voluntarily break themselves into pieces. He wondered further still if perhaps Stiles, after years of being with his father, had begun to believe it too and built a rather large complex around the terror and guilt of it. Wondered if that anxiety that was always at the back of Stiles’s mind had something to do with this myth about how sparks worked.

“When he wakes up,” Derek said. “Tell him to go to the druid compound and ask for Alan Deaton… perhaps you should go with him.”

“Why?”

“So you can both stop wondering why she died that night,” Derek said, sliding the tumbler, still full of liquid across the table and standing. “I’ll call him in a few days, in the meantime, you should sleep as well.”

John nodded shakily and watched him go. It isn’t a few days when Stiles wakes up, merely a few hours since Derek left and he wakes up screaming. The house shakes, the wind howls through it slamming doors open and the memory of Stiles’s possession isn’t far enough  for them to not think about it, but John can’t go to him. He stands in the doorway and watches Stiles, curl into himself shaking, crying silently into his knees and rocking. 

He can’t go to him. Yes, Stiles is his son. He’s the only thing he has left in this world… but he was also the reason why his wife wasn’t here and that little bit of resentment, that little bit of guilt stops him… because he’d wanted a son, he’d wanted someone to follow in his footsteps and it had cost him the love of his life. 

When Stiles’s begins to hum, a low familiar song, John retreated, her voice haunting him even now humming that song over Stiles’s crib while trying to get him to sleep. In his nightmares, she’s covered in blood singing that song and she asked him if she was worth it, her eyes dead and vacant like the crime scene photo.

In Stiles’s nightmare, she only tells him that he killed her… calls him a spark-stealer, a murderer, and screams that haunting laugh that sounds too much like the Nogitsune. The lullaby he hums helps give him something else to focus on, but it doesn’t stop the laughing. 

It never did and something told him that it never would. Though the Nogitsune had been exorcized, it's claws had dug deep, deeper than Stiles could see, deeper than anyone could see, but he'd known that. Always watching the corner of his mind where the phantom laugh, the rough voice, the threats, and chaos remained. 

When Derek called, not even five minutes into Stiles being awake, the conversation is simple, all in easy, gentle lycan. He tells him to lay down beneath the blanket, to breathe for him and listen to his voice tell him that he’s okay, that everything would be fine. 

He fell asleep to that voice, seemingly playing over and over again in his head, overpowering the sound of his nightmares and leaving him adrift in the oblivion of sleep.

A few days later, Stiles managed to walk down the stairs to see John sitting at the table. He looked up and then back to his plate silently and it feels a bit like high school after the funeral all over again.  Stiles doesn’t say anything, just makes himself something to eat before getting dressed and walking out the door, straight into Derek’s chest.

“Derek…”

“Hello Stiles,” Derek said warmly, turning him by the shoulders and marching him back inside to tell him and John that he’s made an appointment with Alan Deaton on Stiles’s behalf in a few days time, that he should go and hopefully that would convince him to go to an actual spark compound.

John doesn’t say anything but lets Derek get Stiles into his car and drive him to the station, sit him in his station and tell him he’s been restricted to desk duty.

“Derek,” Stiles started. He stopped and looked at him. “I…”

He sighed and Derek put a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry about it.”

Stiles sighed, “Just focus on getting the answers you need. I’ll still be here.”

Stiles nodded. 

“ _ Astad nue, _ ” Derek told him and walked away. 

That was easier said than done, he’d lived all these years _  terrified _ that he’d inadvertently been the reason his mother was dead.

He finds little solace in doing paperwork. It’s more tedious than time-consuming. Eventually, he finds himself in the Alliance library trying to find anything that may assuage his panic. None of it helps.

The morning of his appointment he woke up on his ceiling and didn’t manage to get down for a good ten minutes before crashing painfully to the floor of his apartment bedroom. He takes the directions, gets in his Jeep and resolves himself to get answers because he just couldn’t be paralyzed by fear any longer.

It had been something he'd learned during his possession. 

Fear would kill him faster than the truth.


	20. Nothing More To Say.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Answers and Sugar (seriously though, sugar. I felt my by blood sugar rising just writing the last bit.)

Druid compounds are in general restricted to the public. You had to have an in or make an appointment to get in. To be safe, Stiles puts on his cleanest shirt and jeans like he’s going into work. He takes his Handler’s license, badge, and all the trappings of his position before driving to the compound. When he parked outside the compound, the security guard scans him for his intent and checks him in. The transportation circle takes him to the main building where Alan’s apprentice is waiting for him. She’s nice enough to greet him, give him some tea and guide him to the man’s office. 

“Hello,” he said and Stiles recognized him as a member of the Alliance board. “Take a seat and we’ll get started.” 

Stiles took a seat in the chair Alan directed him towards and sighed. Alan told him that Derek had given him a general rundown of what Stiles was there for, but he wanted to hear it from Stiles.

"I'm... terrified that I killed her," he said.

Alan turned to him regarding him seriously.

"I can't... I can't go on with all this insanity happening to me without knowing for certain..."

"There is no test necessary for that answer," Alan said. "There isn't much known about sparks, but like shifter spirits a spark's departure from your body doesn't kill you. Having it ripped for your body would though. It also isn't something that can be siphoned out of a person over time. It's an all or nothing deal."

Stiles swallowed, "If your mother's spark left her body it wasn't through any fault of your own."

Stiles said nothing, but Alan could tell that his words would fall on Stiles’s deaf ears until there was some undeniable proof. 

So he got ready to run the tests and told Stiles to relax while asking him various questions and answering Stiles's questions about the tests he was performing. While it wasn't as accurate or as easy as a test any spark could do on him, it would answer Stiles's questions and hopefully lead him toward getting answers about what he should be expecting.

There was no magical dissonance in Stiles suggesting that the spark had come to him naturally, more importantly, it had been with him for his entire life, ruling out the possibility that he'd inherited it from a still living family member. There was however another energy coexisting with him like a shield around his spark and another tethered out that Deaton couldn't figure out. Those were things he'd need a spark to answer.

When he told him what he'd found, Stiles swallowed and let out a deep breath like years of struggle had suddenly vanished, his eyes burning. He hadn't... killed her. He hadn't... but then why wasn't she still here?

"How is this possible?"

“It’s very unusual for a male spark to receive their spark potential from their mother, but not impossible. They say that if it’s hereditary, and not malevolently hereditary, it’s because the child and their parent had a very strong bond. That’s usually how sparks are chosen to my knowledge, it just so happens that the strongest bonds also seem to follow gender lines…”

But magic, especially spark magic, was never that simple. Sparks were partially sentient and were known to leave a host when they felt like it. They could leave, come back, refuse to respond if they willed it, if they didn’t agree with the user’s intentions. They were often pointed to as proof of the separation between people and their souls. Stiles knew all of that, yet it had done nothing to quiet his guilt.

Stiles doesn’t know what to feel about it, “What do I do?”

“Nothing, you just let it happen… and maybe go talk to a spark or two so you understand what you’ll be experiencing. Perhaps someone in your family, if possible, if your spark is of your family line.”

“How do I know if it’s of my family line or not?”

“Do you get a certain kind of feeling from your spark, how does it manifest?”

He shrugged, “Honestly?”

“Yes… honesty is the best policy for this.”

“Well… my boyfriend was doing things to me and… there was an earthquake… and I blew out all of the lights.”

“I see… In his house?”

“Across the estate actually.”

“I see… Happy.”

Stiles flushed at the man’s dry expression.

“Very pleasurable happy—"

“Yes, pleasurable happy. Happy pleasure. Yes.”

Alan nodded with a smile, “I see, well then it’s more than likely familial.”

“What does that mean?”

“If it wasn’t familial, your emotions wouldn’t be so tied to it. Has anything else strange been happening when you have bursts of emotion? Hands on fire? Lightning bolts?”

“Yes…and really cold water. I woke up on my ceiling and couldn’t get down for ten minutes.”

“Familial, therefore natural…the effects of your emotions on your magic seem to be steady, traceable, settled if you will. If it wasn’t natural, the reactions would be a bit more sporadic ranging from the tiniest spark to a very large hurricane depending on the strength of the spark.”

He remembered reading about the way sparks chose and accepted hosts… How they had to settle and the longer it took to settle, or if someone tried to force the spark to settle, the worse off they would be. He knew a few cousins who’d suffered the torments of the damned while their sparks settled and manifested. There had been a lot of magical insurance claims filed.

“Great.”

“I would offer you a book, but we don’t have any on sparks.”

“You have books on Lycans and everyone else, but no sparks?”

“Sparks out date us,” Alan explained. “They probably know more than anyone has the right to know about anyone… Which is probably why they’re so secluded.”

_ Even more secluded than Druids. _

At least you could be directed to a druid compound. If you weren’t invited or aren’t related, no amount of direction would lead you to a spark compound. It was as if they blended in with nature or were literally a second out of sync with the rest of the world is some sort of self-created bubble universe.

It would also explain why they never seem to get involved in anyone else’s affairs… 

_ Talk about an unfair advantage... _

“Sparks have the amazing ability to learn an exorbitant amount of knowledge in a short period of time. Speed reading, knowledge absorption, that sort of thing. Spirit languages… “

“A lot of meaning in each word…” Stiles said. 

“Yes exactly.”

He let out a distressed sound, “Oh god, I’m going to have to tell my boyfriend he’s right.”

Deaton only smiled at him, “Yes, that does happen. Is your boyfriend… Wiccan or druid?”

“Lycan actually.”

He made a noise, “A Lycan and a spark. I assume you’re speaking of Derek Hale.”

Stiles nodded and he made another noise.

“What’s that mean?”

“They say that sparks and shifters usually get along very well. There’s usually no tension between the two groups because they’re very close…in magical character that is.”

Stiles almost groaned. Of course. Shifter spirits were very in tune with everything that goes on in the same way that spark spirits were. No wonder the weird spirit bond they’d forged had started to take form so quickly… assuming that Stiles really was a spark…

“Being a spark… wouldn’t have manifested itself… as oh, I don’t know, a lack of attention span or something like that would it?”

“If manifested at a young enough age, perhaps. Again, you’d have to ask a spark.”

_ Fuck _ , no wonder Adderall didn’t work. Had his mother known all this time? Perhaps his father?

“You have attention problems?”

“Yes,… but not all the time. I can’t do one thing at a time… I need like a pile of things to do all at once.”

“Yes… I would say that your boyfriend is right… You’ve been a spark for a very long time.”

Stiles sighed, “But… but we’re talking since I was a baby… Like how would that even work in terms of my connection to my parents?”

“It was your mother, right?”

“Yes.”

“Children are attached to their mother first and foremost.” Alan continued,  “Do you look like her?”

“A lot like her.”

“Doppelganger?”

“Without boobs and hips, yes.”

He nodded, “Genetically speaking you’re probably also exceedingly close to her as well. That could be enough for a spark to claim you as part of the lineage. It’s far more likely.”

“Damnit.”

“I would suggest you get in touch with your nearest spark family member and start asking questions.”

“Great… Do druids have anything like this?”

“No, out coming of age is pretty standard. Our magic is learned, passed down knowledge. We’re far closer to human than supernatural, and sparks are as supernatural as a Lycan.”

Stiles swallowed and nodded. Deaton told him he was welcome to return if he had any other questions, but he would be better off going to a spark estate. Stiles left rushing out of the compound, into his Jeep and driving towards his Aunt’s house. She lived on a small spark compound, not the main one in the area, yet it felt no less strange to drive there. He didn’t know any of the unmarked roads, nor where he was really going until he pulled up outside of her house. He'd only had the intent to see her and let himself drive where he needed to. She was standing on the porch when he arrived with a small smile.

“Hello Stiles,” she said. “Come on in.”

He nodded walking towards the door, “You know why I’m here?”

“We’ve been waiting for it since you were a kid… a little earlier than we expected, but you’re Claud’s kid so not really unexpected.”

She gave him a cup of hot cocoa and led him to the living room where his grandmother and several other members of his mother’s family were seated, prepared to answer his questions and talk to him.

Claudia's sisters all looked like their mother, while Claudia had taken after their father, all dark hair and dark eyes. Claudia had also taken all the curve in the gene pool as the youngest, but that had nothing to do with him. 

"You went to a druid didn't you?" His aunt Nicole asked. "What'd they tell you?"

Stiles pulled out the results Alan had given him and said ultimately that Alan told him that it wasn't his fault.

HIs grandmother let out a frustrated breath, "Listen, Stiles, I don't know what your father has led you to believe and if I had my way you would have been raised here since you were a child. Get it out of your head that it was in anyway your fault. It isn't healthy, Claudia would never want you to think that, and it isn't true."

Stiles looked down into his cup at the slight scolding. She let out another breath and began to explain the nature of sparks. Everything he'd ever read was pretty much wrong. Becoming a spark happened one of two ways: you were born as one or you came into a spark sometime in your life. Those who stole sparks from others didn't become sparks, but were either killed by the sparks they stole or corrupted. 

"Those horrible creatures that prey on the supernatural, stealing magic, those are them," she said. 

"There is no such thing as a "spark lineage"," she told him. "Sparks chose who they want, when they want, how they want it has nothing to do with your family being sparks."

After all, there had been completely human families that had a spark child though there had never been a spark in the family. 

"There are occasionally new sparks however," she clarified. "They're the kinds that haven't ever had a host before. They're usually more powerful, but harder to control and they're usually with their host from birth."

They'd known Stiles would be a spark from the moment they met him as a baby. The fact that Claudia had also come into possession of a brand new spark had been surprising.

"The original host had probably been murdered," one of his aunts said. "Claudia had probably just been at the right place at the right time to pick it up."

They tell him that new sparks were tricky in that no one knew how they would settle or ignite, when or how, or really anything until they did so. They gave him charms to wear to keep his destruction of property at the minimum while he slept and a few books to read that had exercises he could do to keep his spark occupied so it wouldn't want to lash out and also give him some practice getting in touch with it. They walk him through some of the harder ones and gives him practice charms. When they send him off with a bunch of sweets, because apparently he'd need them, he feels a little more settled. 

He drove to his apartment, closed the door and set everything down on his living room table with a sigh. 

One of the charms is a bracelet he can put on rather easily, he decides to put on two and reaches for the orb they gave him to practice with, sitting on his couch and taking a deep breath to focus and look for the spot of warmth they helped him find. 

It's elusive, but eventually he can hold it in his hands and feels it spreading in waves across him, into his hands until the orb begins to glow. 

That's at least until it seemed to surge, rush out in a wave of lightning and blew him over the back of the couch. He groaned. 

This would apparently he harder than he thought...

*

Stiles isn’t sure how he’d forced himself to drive to the Hale Estate after being shocked and floated around his apartment for hours since his initial attempt to practice. Maybe, at the core of himself, he just doesn’t want to be alone with the information right now. It will take a while to wrap his head around it, to choke it down, but until then…he got out of the car, fished out his keys and walked into Derek’s cottage.

The older man was on the couch, lounging, fresh from a shower, half naked. He looked up at him. His scent is more confused than usual, smelling like mountain ash and druid spaces, ether, singed cotton, sweets tinged with terror and nervousness.

“What’s wrong?”

“You were right.”

“About?”

“Me apparently being a spark… apparently it’s been… obvious since I was a kid and part of the reason that Adderall doesn’t work...I went to Alan and my grandmother...I’ve also been being blown around my apartment for the last few hours after attempting to practice. I'm scared and I... I...”

Stiles swallowed thickly and Derek watched his bracelets light up, his feet leave the ground for just a moment and licked his lips at Stiles's scent growings stronger through the room.

“I see,” Derek said with a nod. “Well… glad we know now.”

“Derek, I didn’t--”

“It’s okay. I know what it’s like to avoid grief.”

“It wasn’t your fault you know,” Stiles said, looking at him.

“One day… I’ll believe it. ‘Till then, come here…I want to touch you.”

He smiled a little bit, “Going to keep it tame?”

He grinned as Stiles pulled off his jacket and badge before realizing that even though he moved his legs to walk, he went nowhere. He looked down, seeing the distance from the soles of his shoes to the ground with a dark chuckle. 

"Fucking hell..."

Derek stood up, walking towards him to take his hand and pull him, still floating towards the couch and down into his arms until the bracelets stopped glowing and the full weight of Stiles settled into his lap.

“I can’t promise that.”

“Alright… so long as you promise.”

“I swear on my life and spirit that I cannot promise you that I will keep my touching to G-rated standards.”

He smiled, “That’s more like it.”

Derek chuckled as Stiles curled himself in his lap with a gentle sigh. Derek started slow, careful to savor the sparkling on Stiles's tongue before standing, carrying Stiles up the stairs and peeling him out of the rest of his clothes. 

At the first shock of lightning, Derek pulled back, surprised as it rippled through his mouth and Stiles flushed.

"I'm sorry!"

Derek shook his head and kissed him again, "It doesn't hurt, promise."

"It could--"

"Shut up, Stiles,'" he said indulgently, licking his way down Stiles's chest. 

Stiles choked, a ripple of purple and blue lightning shuddering down his body and over Derek as he sucked particularly hard. Stiles froze, making the lighting twist again. Derek looked up at him, his eyes glowing blue.

"I..."

He hummed and Stiles cried out, falling back at the feeling. He wanted to push Derek away, but the lightning was twisting around his fingers and he's pretty sure that a lightning bolt to the brain would kill anyone. Derek on the other hand feels exhilarated. Each pulse of lightning feeling like pure lust and warmth over him. If he wasn't already missing Stiles, and wanting to debauch him, the lightning definitely would have done it. So he takes his time, torturing Stiles and licking the lightning off his skin, making him squirm and plead for mercy beneath him. 

When they lay exhausted hours later, Stiles fading off into sleep, Derek kissed his shoulder, pulled him close and told him that he'd make food for them both later. 

"Food..." Stiles said dreamily before passing out. 

If Derek had known that he'd wake up to Stiles floating on the ceiling eating all the cookies in his cabinet and chugging milk he would have made food earlier.

“Stiles?”

Glowing eyes glanced to him, blinked to brown and he shook his head. 

“What?”

He fell, lucky that Derek was there to catch him while the half finished jug went flying into the air.

“What is going on?”

“I… don’t know,” Stiles said, shoving the rest of the cookie in his mouth. “Sorry.”

Derek shook his head and set him down on the ground with a sigh before looking up where the jug of milk was frozen, the contents sloshed and frozen in the air. 

"Any idea how long that's going to stay there?"

The milk retreated into the jug and drifted down into Stiles's hand. Derek looked down at him and watched him chug the contents and return to raiding his cabinet. If it wasn't so odd, Derek may have laughed watching Stiles drink a bottle of honey. Instead, he went the fridge, took out the makings of breakfast and cooked for them both. 

They had steak, eggs, and pancakes. Derek only slid the bottle of syrup to Stiles's side of the table and watched him drown his plate in it. 

"If you're not careful, you'll be diabetic in no time," Derek said biting back laughter as Stiles lifted the plate to drink the rest of the syrup off it.

"I... think I should go see my grandmother again."

"I agree."


	21. I’m So Affected, No Need to Work It Out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spark moments and nudity.

It should have been simple… except that they were all as close to nude as possible. It was a pureblood lycan event and the four of them, Kira, Scott, Stiles, and Derek had been assigned as part of the security detail. Though Derek explained that such events were usually held nude for ease of shifting, It doesn't make Scott anymore comfortable about walking around naked while on duty. Kira and Stiles high five for being non-shifter. Though they aren't wearing much, they aren't walking around stark naked with only their weapons holsters and Alliance badges for clothing. The victory is short-lived when they realize that the sight of their significant others, naked only makes it hard to concentrate as they're used to other, very nonwork safe things, happening when they were in states of undress.

Derek gives Stiles a smirk, crossing his arms over his chest and standing feet apart, on full display for Stiles to ogle.

"Like something you see?"Derek asked. “I could cover myself in honey too if you’d like.”

Stiles flushed, huffed and finished tying the length of cloth around his waist that he was allowed before shrugging on his gun holsters. Derek thought he was _hilarious_ , Stiles was firmly in opposition to that thought since the honey incident. He hung his head, there was no way he would ever live that down with Derek. Along with many of the other oddities of his ignition: random bouts of magic that would have killed him. Sometimes he just started floating before being slammed into something. For the love of Ravi, he ate so much sweet stuff he was sure his teeth were rotting.

The _Honey_ Incident had been one such instance of Derek giving him a thoroughly sensual magical work out the night before, as his spark really liked to express itself as sex waves when he was with Derek. The morning after Derek had been making one of his stupidly healthy  post-run sandwiches: bananas, peanut butter, and honey. Stiles had been in a trance of _sweets_ and Derek had been half naked, fresh from a post-run shower, naked, warm and the honey bottle had exploded, the full contents of the bottle covering Derek.

He remembered Derek sighing, turning to him and his eyes glowing red with desire because Stiles had been staring at him, the sticky mess sliding down Derek’s body. Stiles had started at his ankles lapping at the mess and Derek had stood there and watched, quaking in his skin, letting Stiles lick him clean then climb onto his cock, lapping at his neck and rolling his hips so Derek slid deeper and deeper with each rock of his hips. Between the two of them, they’d eaten nearly everything in Derek’s cottage and still had to go get take-out.

“Or maybe we should try chocolate syrup.

"Can it," Stiles said. “You know my spark could give a fuck about my badge.”

Kira smiled as Scott practically drooled at her. She'd chosen the bra because it was one of the nicest ones she owned, with the best support in case she had to run. That combined with the sword and the style of wrap she wore pressed all of Scott's "hot warrior goddess" buttons. It wasn't really his fault.

The event started off quiet. A lot of Derek's family were there greeting him kindly and mingling around while they kept an eye on the crowd. There had been intel about an intended assassination, hence the extra security.

"I don't see why we don't kill them all. They only turn blue when you've killed an innocent."

The notion was calumny at best: blue eyes never meant the death of an innocent. They weren’t related at all. The myth he was talking about was just superstition supported by a single instance of an accidental murder by a blue-eyed omega. Derek didn’t stiffen, but Liam looked pissed off rounding in the direction of the words.

“There’s something inherently criminal about them. Whether the rumors or true or not, their resistance to Pack at the very least it makes them a danger to the Lycan commun--”

“Finish your statement,” he growled. “And I will have your throat separated from your body.”

Derek almost winced as Stiles blinked.  It seemed a bit harsh but then Derek was leaning over to tell him that Liam was the man Stiles had only spoken with over the phone, Derek’s uncle and the Alpha of the Hale family. Stiles winced. Seeing Liam now and knowing what he knew about Liam’s relationship with Derek… he could see why such things would be a hot button for him. He was surprised that Liam had even bothered to speak considering.

He kind of just expected to take the “claws first” approach.

“ _What are you?_ ”

Stiles turned at the question, blinking up at him and feeling an odd chill creeping up his spine. He was wearing his limiting charms, but he knew from experience that they weren't fool-proof. It had only taken once to blast himself out of the bathroom to figure that out. The man leered at him, sniffing at him, no doubt catching the lingering scent of lightning and thunder on his skin.

"More importantly, whose are you?"

Derek is about to turn and tell the man to back off, but then Stiles is talking, not quite dancing around his sparkness, but diverting the man's attention to his own ego while answering that he was more or less married to his duty and at the moment that duty was to make sure everyone went home tonight.

Derek watched on in disbelief while Scott didn’t seem disturbed by it at all. Lying to a lycan was hard, even when you could control your visceral reactions, but to use prevarication to mislead and avoid lying completely while sounding completely convincing? It was artful in a terrifying way. Alpha Connor only nodded, apparently satisfied with Stiles’s response and carrying on.

“You have to teach me to do that,” Derek said as the man left them to head back into the party.

Stiles grinned, “Years of living with Mom, Dad, and their partners. No need to be veracious when evasion would get the job done far more effectively… and with less yelling.”

Derek snorted. Of course. As the night wears on, Stiles isn't sure that there would even be an incident, at least until there was something telling him to turn around and watch the waiter. A waiter he hadn't seen all night... wearing someone else's badge. He glanced at Derek who was still scanning the crowd before moving to intercept the man, catching his hand and aiming up as he fired the first shot. Stiles got the gun out of his hand to toss it away only to get punched in the stomach and the man turn to escape. Stiles ran after him, hoping over a table to tackle him into the shallow fountain.

Scott, Derek, and Kira moved to get everyone away, but even in the chaos Stiles and Derek can see the bonds of water around the man's ankles and shoulders as Stiles managed to get him handcuffed despite all of his struggling. Stiles hauled him up as the man growled.

"What the fuck are you?"

"Move it," Stiles said forcing him to walk out of the event, dripping wet and shivering a bit in the night air.

"Did you see that?" Scott asked.

Derek nodded, "Yep."

"The water, not Stiles's ass," Scott clarified.

Derek rolled his eyes, "Yes, Scott. I saw the water."

"And now everyone's seen Stiles's ass."

He shook his head wondering when Scott would ever let Stiles live it down the way the sash clung to the roundness of his ass and the shape of his dick as he marched the assassin out of the event. It was obscene, but since everyone else was naked it really shouldn't have been. It was probably because Derek was used to getting Stiles naked for other reasons.

“Nice ass,” Derek told him offering him a towel. “You might as well go naked now.”

Stiles glowered at him, “Hush naked man.”

Derek grinned, “Perhaps I should institute nakedness always.”

Stiles snorted, “Not if we plan on getting anything done.”

Derek laughed and turned back towards the rest of the soiree, “You should try it.”

Stiles looked at him in confusion, “What?”

“Nudity,” he said off-handedly. “Might help with all your discomfort… fitting in your own skin.”

Stiles looked at him full then, though he didn’t turn to look at him.  Not sure if there was anything he could say to get rid of the utterly heavy feeling Derek's words had introduced between them. 

"Come on," Derek said as the party ended and they were dismissed. "I have better things you could be doing naked."

"Like aerobics?"

"Like me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A pretty short chapter by comparison, but...oh well. I think even Derek and Stiles could use a break from the long action packed chapters.


	22. Contaminate My Lips, All About His Kiss--

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spark depression sucks, but at least Derek is there to make it better.

Contrary to popular belief, sparks weren’t nearing extinction, though extremely rare. And Derek was pretty sure he’d never met a male spark before Stiles and if he had he wouldn’t be able to pick him out in a lineup. Maybe they were even rarer than sparks in general. Sparks were hardly known and even more rarely associated as far as he knew. And he could only guess that there were so few of them, or maybe they just didn’t go around telling anyone. It made Derek think about underground meetings if they were anywhere near as hunted as Lycans had been at one point in history. The fact that Stiles was not only a male spark but currently running around with his hands on fire, shoving half melted marshmallows in his mouth made Derek wonder how the hell they’d managed to remain such a secret if this was what their puberty was like.

“D-Derek?” Stiles asked in between gooey mouthfuls seeing the man walking into his apartment. “When’d…”

Derek silently opened the bag of groceries he was carrying. Chocolate chip mint ice cream, honey, bars of chocolate, more marshmallows and graham crackers. Gummie bears and practically the whole sweets aisle were put on Stiles’s little table. He watched the way Stiles’s eyes lit up and he advanced on the table, smiling a little amused by Stiles’s spark. It was a playful thing with a need to devour sweets at an alarming rate, something he knew that Stiles’s father was giving him hell about after years of Stiles harping on him about his diet.  
In Stiles’s defense, he was a magical creature and thus his body clearly worked a little differently. Besides, it wasn’t like he could stop his soul from hijacking his body and shoving confections down his throat like a starving man. He could barely keep his damn feet on the ground some days.

“Der’aq… gave me a vision of you screaming,” he said. “You want to talk about it?”

Stiles swallowed his hands falling at his sides, his jaw trembled and in a moment he had arms full of a trembling Stiles. The familiar sex-shocks rushing through Derek’s body screaming touch me, but somehow he managed to resist it. As soon as his spark figures out that its usual tactics weren’t working, or maybe that Stiles was just too sad to try it for long, a deluge of pain hit Derek’s mind, making him gasp and squeeze Stiles closer. It isn’t just physical pain, but emotional anguish and guilt. He sees the people that were killed while he was possessed, Claudia, and flashes of his life that made Derek whine in sorrow pulling Stiles closer still. The images don’t stop but replay and expand, coming out in a thick deluge over Derek’s senses that makes his knees a little week.

Der’aq is probably the only reason he’s still standing, holding Stiles as the magic pours out of him in thick, heady waves.

“Shh,” he soothed, kissing his head, rocking him gently. “Shh.”

Stiles sniffled, burying his face in the cloth of Derek’s shirt, shaking still as lightning shot out around them, arcing through the apartment’s metal objects. The doorknob and lamp, the lights so the bulbs blew. Derek lifted him up, letting Stiles cling to him and cry, perhaps for the first time in his life, his heart out.

“D-Derek…”

“Shh,” he said gently, cupping Stiles’s ass to carry him towards his shower. He peeled off their clothes. A logical part of him knew that stepping into the shower with a body that was currently shooting lighting was a bad idea, but as soon as the water was on and all the light bulbs were blown out, the lightning stopped. Instead, Stiles’s spark manipulated the water, hot enough to warm Stiles’s trembling body, but not so hot to scald. It pressed against them like a second skin, pool around them in the tub as Derek lowered them to the ground.  
Derek swallowed, sliding a hand under Stiles’s shirt to get some more skin to skin contact. He’s a tad hesitant to try, there was no telling what mingling their magics like this would do, but he does it anyway, finding that empathy and extending it, reaching out to drain his pain.  
Stiles’s body jerked as if touched be a live wire and Derek can feel his resistance.

“Let me help you, Stiles.”

He curled tighter, shaking his head forcing Derek to pull harder until Stiles whimpered.

“Please…”

“Let me help you,” he whispered in his ear. “All of you.”

“It could hurt you.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Just let me help you. Let me in.”

It snapped all at once.

_Let me in , Stiles. Let me in! Let me in!!_

Derek felt it as the water swirled up yanking Derek out of the tub and throwing him across the room, effectively shattering glass.  
Derek groaned as he fell over the porcelain basin and onto the floor.

Stiles’s eyes open glowing red, but seeing nothing. His mouth yelling words of power that Derek couldn’t understand, but he understood that whatever it was wasn’t good for him as he went flying through the bathroom door and into the solid wall. Stiles was on him again, hands around his throat screaming at him.

Derek grabbed his hands, trying to pry them away only to find that they were too strong, burning like fire and getting tighter.

“S-Stiles...Stiles… please…”

His eyes fluttered, images of Kate rising, her hands around his throat, pressing on the wolfsbane laced collar and his body aching from her torture.

_I’m not there anymore… This is Stiles. It’s Stiles._

He tried to reach out but Stiles’s spark wasn’t there to feel Der’aq’s touch, couldn’t hear him whimpering in terror and worry… couldn’t see Derek beyond whatever hell they were trapped in.

“S-Stiles… uil...Nava’il’to...ui...efilẟe. uil...Baby?”

The glow vanished and Stiles gasped, pulling away and letting Derek drop to the ground, choking, rubbing his neck and gasping for breath.

“D-Derek? Derek… I… I..”

Derek reached out, grabbing Stiles’s ankle to keep him from running away as he caught his breath.

“I’m fine, Stiles,” he said, the pain in his neck going away, his vision clearing. His muscles were sore from being thrown around but the bruising had already cleared up. “I’m fine, I promise… come here, Stiles...just… come here.”

“B-But…”

“Come here,” Derek said again, softer, gentler. “It’s okay.”

Stiles was hesitant but after a few more minutes of coaxing, he came, kneeling beside Derek, allowing him to haul him in close and rest against the wall.

“Let me hold you?”

Stiles said nothing, breathing slowly. He pressed a kiss to his forehead and they sat that way until they could both wrap their mind around what happened.

Derek wakes up in Stiles’s bed with the other nowhere to be seen. The trove of sweets he’d brought with him remained untouched on the counter, the apartment empty save for himself and the smell of cooked meat.

A fluttering piece of paper caught his attention, waving to him gently from the kitchen counter.

_Gone to talk with the sparks. I’m sorry._

Derek set the page aside and followed the smell towards the oven. Steaks, roast, chicken… a carnivore’s dream still warm in the oven. He made himself a plate, ate but resigned himself to wait for Stiles to return. They needed to talk, that hadn’t been a normal instance of his spark hijacking his body, he wasn’t entirely sure what that was, but he knew that Stiles was freaking out about it. He could feel it through their bond even with how far away he was.

But that bond hadn’t been there the night before. Whatever connection he and Stiles had didn’t reach to the place where those glowing eyes and killing intent had come from. Wherever that had come from, Derek needs to know or perhaps he wouldn’t be awake in the morning to eat a carnivore’s dream.

*

“There is nothing you can do, but accept it.” She told him watching him pace in sympathy. “It is not something that can just be wished away.”

“Of course not! Why would it ever be as easy? I almost killed him you understand that?”

“You have a lot of trauma--”

“My hands around his throat, throwing him against things! I couldn’t stop it! You can’t tell me that there’s nothing!”

“You could give up your spark,” she said and Stiles stopped looking at her. “That’s what you want to hear isn’t it?”

He flinched at her tone and looked away.

“Giving it up will not bring her back, Stiles… nor will it make the memories any easier to bear.”

Stiles sighed, collapsing into a chair, tears burning in his eyes as he held his head in his hands.

“I can’t do this.”

“You underestimate yourself if you think that’s true.”

“I can’t have… his blood on my hands too because he wants to hold me!” He yelled, shaking his head. “I can’t… I can’t do this. Please… there’s… there has to be something.”

“I’m sorry, Stiles,” she said sadly. “This isn’t a spark problem, this is a trauma problem. Trauma that you haven’t truly dealt with… and until you do it will always have power over you.”

Stiles groaned, getting up and leaving as fast as his feet could take him, denying any confection someone tried to offer him, no matter how much his spark was pushing him to take it.

He didn’t want this.

He’d had enough of not having control over his own body… He couldn’t even remember most of it, but he remembered pieces. Things the nogitsune had made him do, the way he needed to cause to feed it. The taste of black tar and flies guts… of ash, licorice, and raw meat… He stumbled to his Jeep, bending over to wretch as his senses gave him just the edge of that taste.

_Let me in Stiles. Let me in._

He isn’t sure how long he stands there wretching up nothing, but he hates it… he hasn’t eaten anything, his body is feeling sluggish and his impulses are screaming for something sweet, a lot of something sweet. The taste of tar getting stronger and he got into his Jeep, driving away from the compound.

The voice getting stronger and stronger until he can’t even see the road any longer, the darkness coming. He stopped the car and got out, wretching as he struggled to crawl his way away from the jeep, away from the compound, his stomach heaving.

_Food…_

He turned hearing the slithering in the underbrush as he panted, sick and weary.

_Friend…_

“No! I am not your friend!” He yelled to the underbrush as he hacked.

_Friend…_

“I’m... I’m…”

“Stiles!”

There was light and sounds, the smell of ash in his nose as he fell over and the darkness pulled him under. Tar in his mouth…

Blood on his hands…

Derek’s blood on his hands.

*

Derek runs into the hospital, past the desk, and up the stairs, following only the scent of him through the hospital to find him in the magical containment unit, unconscious and warded in. An old woman stood staring through the warded glass as wisps of darkness and wisps of light, horrible nightmare images and dream twisted together in the air. Stiles remained floating in the middle of the room.  
Derek went for the door.

“I wouldn’t do that, Derek,” she said.

“How do you know who I am?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’m Stiles’ grandmother,” she said. “A spark myself… and we have a lot to talk about.”


	23. See the Future, So Familiar—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles meets his spark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, I promise I haven't abandoned this (or any fic), it's just been... well rough is an understatement. Hopefully, classes will end and I'll have some time to just sit down and write. (I'm in Nanowirmo and I'm totally behind!!!)

John isn’t sure what to say seeing the wild energy slashing the inside of the hospital room, his son in a coma floating in the center of it. Light and dark moved together, twisting, fighting. Claudia hadn’t gone through anything like this when her ignition started. She’d lost twenty pounds while eating her way through several bakeries, but that had been about it. 

“What are you telling me?” He asked. “Human here, you’ll have to explain.”

Her eyes narrowed at his tone, but in respect for her late sister, she took a breath and told him plainly that Stiles was fighting his spark. 

“From guilt,” she said.

“Why? What does that even mean?”

She gave him a pointed look, “How about you start with the why and not worry about the meaning, human?”

She turned then and he growled, “What the hell is your problem?”

She turned, “My problem is  _ you. _ You were happy so long as Claudia wasn’t a spark and when she ignited you fucking flipped. Don’t think just because she didn’t come home as often, that she didn’t cry about it, that she didn’t sob and fight for your relationship, for Stiles-- she loved you and you could never accept the fact that she was a spark. “   
He opened his mouth and she cut him off.

“Just like you could never accept the fact that Stiles was  _ always _ a spark.” 

He swallowed then, drawing back as she glared at him. 

“Do you even remember what you said to him when you were too drunk to recognize him?”

John turned, “I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, John Stilinski,” she said with a grand gesture. “Just stay out of the way, you’re only here because Stiles loves you. If it were up to me or mom, he would have grown up in the compound where he was supposed to--”

“Like a coward?” He asked.

“Like he mattered,” she said. “You think if he grew up knowing he was a spark, knowing what to expect, knowing what he was supposed to know if you weren’t there to get in the way that this would be happening? You think a Nogitsune would have gotten to him? Really?”

John glared and opened his mouth, “I did the best I could.”

“You did what you thought was the best for your ego,” she said evenly, “And now Stiles is paying for it.”

John curled his fist tight and turned back, knowing that he’d lost the battle. It was always like that--arguing with sparks. Claudia was like that, Stiles was like that too… They were always  _ right _ and they were unapologetic about it too, most supernaturals were that way and while John had learned to go for the emotional jugular, supernaturals seemed to be trained from birth by their magic to go for the sweet spot and leave you bleeding out on the floor. 

He looked up as the rest of Claudia’s sisters arrived. They exchanged hugs and greeted him politely before Claudia’s mother arrived. He hadn’t seen her since Stiles was a kid and he told her plainly that no way in hell was he letting her take Stiles. 

He remembered still how Claudia had tried to reason with him, but he wasn’t going to be moved. Stiles was his son, his human son, being a spark wasn’t hereditary, there was no reason for it. He just had an attention problem. The old crone had given Claudia a meaningful look as she looked at him hopelessly and Stiles remained fidgeting in his chair. She’d respected his decision then, left, leaving Claudia with two guns, one for her and one for Stiles when the time came, and a basket of sweets for Stiles to munch on. He had no illusions about the fact that Claudia often took Stiles to the compound to visit, but they always returned home by the end of the day. 

He could see that day in her eyes now as she looked at him, cold. 

“John,” she said.

“Elena.”

John watched her, met her eyes before she turned to the rest of her daughters.

“Nicole, you’ll take lead. Tae’ on the right, Neo’ on the left. Cat’, Morgan, and Brooke on the door and window. I’ll deal with Stiles.”

They nodded.

“Derek should be here soon, as should Scott and Kira.”

“What are you doing?” John asked standing as they geared up handing out candy bars to eat before they went in. 

“Fixing him,” Elena said. “They can’t do anything for him here besides contain him.”

John surged, “Don’t you think you should ask me first?”

Elena regarded him coolly, “I asked you years ago and this is where it’s gotten us.”

“I’m still his father!”

“And  _ human _ , as you like to emphasize. This is a supernatural problem, a  _ spark _ problem that you cannot even begin to comprehend.”

“So it’s back to this?” John asked. “Just say it, Elena. What you’ve been waiting to say all of these years.”

Elena regarded him and blinked, “I’ll let you go first since you seem to have so much to say after all these years, John.”

He growled, “You aren’t taking him. I won’t allow it. You’re not in a compound where you can do whatever you want, this is a human space, with human rules. I’m his next of kin.”

“Blood kin, perhaps,” she said. “But this isn’t a human hospital, it’s a general hospital’s supernatural ward which is governed by supernatural rules. The closest living relative of any supernatural is a parent, but a spark’s closest living relative is the closest relative of the same species.”

“He’s checked in as human.”

Elena drew out paperwork and handed it over, “No, he isn’t.”

He frowned looking at it seeing Stiles’s designation as supernatural, signed off by the Alliance. 

“How is this possible. He is human.”

“A spark in ignition--”

“Stop calling him that!” He said, throwing the pages at her feet. “He’s human!”

Derek, Scott, and Kira arrived as Elena regarded him coolly.

“He will die here, John,” she said. “Is that what you want?”

“What?”

“Are you willing to put your ego before Stiles’s life?” Elena asked. “Yes, he’s human per his identification, but there is no denying that he isn’t any longer. Put him through any test, you’ll see. That aside, are you willing to let Stiles die, John?”

John blinked, “What are you talking about?”

If Stiles’s spark went dark, there was no turning back, if Stiles rejected his spark and it refused to go it would burn him up from the inside. Either way, he’d be as good as dead. 

“Can’t you take it from him?” John asked.

“No,” Elena said. “It’s his birthright--”

“It’s killing him! Who the hell wants that birthright?”

“It wouldn’t be so if you had listened before, but you were too busy cowering in your precious status as a human being, clinging to your pathetic ego that you let this happen,” she said. “I warned you what this would do to him and damned human law with no regard for the delicacy of a supernatural’s spirit. I warned you and you wouldn’t listen, just like your precious Alliance and their need to try and put all supernaturals at the beck and call of humans for centuries.”

John opened his mouth, but she cut him off, “The clock is ticking John. Your ego or your son?”

He grits his teeth, trying to say something, but he could only turn away and leave. Elena watched him go with a shake of her head before Nicole stepped to the door. 

“Derek, with me.”

He nodded as Nicole cast a barrier in front of her and opened the door to keep the magic maelstrom contained. She worked slowly to gain them entry so everyone could set up in their respective places in the room. Derek follows Elena, Scott and Kira trailed after him to reach the center of the room where Stiles was floating.

“We’ll have to speak with Stiles’s spark,” she said and offered one hand to Derek. “All of you, join hands.”

They did so and felt the ripple of magic, sucking them in and dropping them in the middle of an old classroom.

Scott frowned, “I remember this…”

He looked into the door to see the class of children, himself included.

“It’s our pre-K class,” Scott said peering in. Derek looked in as well and suddenly the wall vanished and they were in the classroom. Scott and Stiles sat together finger painting and chatting about nothing when Stiles’s eyes began to flicker and a window broke. Everyone screamed and the teacher tried to get everyone to calm down including Stiles who seemed to be getting more and more nervous as another broke and another.

“I remember this,”Scott said. How could he have forgotten this? 

Spark children had a propensity to having random spurts of magic--usually breaking glass windows was one of the first signs.

The scene melted away, the screaming turning into a male voice. John’s voice interrogating a teacher while Claudia tried to calm him down. Stiles remained quiet, shifty and another window broke.

_ I don’t want you to fight anymore, _ a small voice said from all around them.  _ Don’t fight anymore… I’ll be good… I’ll stop… _

_ Mom? _

_ Dad? _

Elena swallowed thickly, hearing Claudia’s low crying sitting in the living room and  watching Stiles peer around the corner at her before she took a deep breath and cleaned her face before getting up and walking up the stairs to where Stiles had retreated.She grinned at him and scooped him off the floor.

“ _ Hey sweet pea, time for bed, yeah?” _

_ I’ll be normal, _ the voice said.

_ I’ll make it go away. _

_ Don’t make Mom cry anymore. _

_ Don’t make Dad angry. _

_ Go away. _

_ Go away. _

Elena listened trying to follow the voice while the others wandered as well. Derek let Der’aq guide him outside the house and into the forest, losing the others and finding Stiles in his red t-shirt, sitting on the Nemeton splattered in blood and staring into the distance.

“Stiles?”

He didn’t move and Derek reached out only for him to fall over, eyes blank and his heart carved out of his chest. Derek jumped back and turned to see another Stiles, holding a glowing red orb in his hand. He was younger, all of three years old, streaming tears and covered in his own blood.

“I-... I had to….”

Derek turned to the child version of Stiles, frightened, clutching the red orb to his chest.

“M-Mom’s dead… she’s dead b-because of me… she can’t cry anymore b-because of me…but Dad’s angry… he’s so… angry—“

Derek flinched at the sound a bottle crashing against a wall, Stiles screaming in fear and John yelling.

_ It’s all your fault! You weren’t supposed to be one of them! _

“It’s all m-my fault. It has to go away. Has to… we have to—he has to—”

Derek approached slowly, “Do you know who I am?”

The kid trembled and shook his head, “A-Am I in t-trouble?”

“No,” he said softly. “You’re not in trouble. I’m Derek.”

“D-Derek,” he repeated wiping his face. “I’m Kallikrates.”

Derek smiled, trying to wrap his mind around the name. Greek, an ancient greek spark perhaps? Or… he wasn’t sure who he was speaking to at the moment.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I—“

The birds flew, and clouds advanced and the kid spun around, backing away from the edge of the forest growing darker before grabbing Derek’s hand.

“We-We have to go, we have to go now. Something bad is coming. Very bad,” he said tugging Derek’s arm. “We have to go.”

_ Let me in, Stiles. Let me in… _

_ Everyone has it but no one can lose it… what am I?  _

_ What am I? _

Derek took his hand and kneeled looking at the kid who called himself Kallikrates.

“Stiles.”

“That’s not my name,” he said flinching. “That’s not my name.”

“You have to listen to me,” he said gently. “I know you’re scared, I know that a lot of bad things have been said to you, but you can’t run from this.”

“Why are you calling me Stiles? That’s not my name.”

Derek sighed and pulled him close, squeezing him tight, “You have to calm down and face this.”

“I can’t!” he said. “We have to go! It’s coming. We have to go!”

“There’s nowhere to go, Stiles,” Derek said. “There’s nowhere to go.”

“I’m not Stiles, stop calling me that!”

_ Like them— _

_ You were supposed to be like me— _

_ Freak— _

_ It’s called Attention Deficit Disorder— _

“Stiles is dead!” Kallikrates said. “I had to—he didn’t understand. Wouldn’t understand. We have to go, Derek. We have to go.”

“You can’t run from this,” Derek said. “There’s nowhere to run, Stiles.”

“I’m not Stiles!” He said. “I’m not Stiles! Stiles is human! I’m not Stiles.”

“Stiles isn’t human,” Derek said, turning towards the advancing shadow and holding the kid still to look at the body on the Nemeton. “He’s not dead and neither are you.”

He stiffened, “I… I can’t…”

“You both can,” he said.

_ I love you, sweet pea. _

_ Mom? _

_ I killed you! _

Derek looked at the shadow and watched it condense into a glowing black orb to fill Stiles’s chest, animating the body with staring eyes until it moved, his head cocked at an awkward angle.

_ Fuck. _

*

Scott and Kira found a three-year-old Stiles’s body lying dead on the playground, the heart carved out and the twenty-year-old covered in blood, shaking with a bright red orb in his hand.

“I-I had to...”

“Stiles?” Kira asked.

“Stiles is dead,” he said. “I’m not Stiles.”

Scott frowned, “Then… who are you?”

“I’m Kallikrates.”

_ Who the hell is that? _

“Do you… know who I am?”Scott ventured.

He shook his head shakily, “That’s… that’s not important. We have to go.”

“Go where?” Scott asked. “Where’s Stiles?”

“I told you he’s dead,” he said, “Now come on before it catches up.”

Scott watched him turn and run before chasing after him.

“Stiles wait!”

He broke through the tree line only to find them back in another classroom, this time at Beacon Hills High School.

“Alright, what the hell is going on?” Kira asked. “Where’s Derek and Elena?”

“Not a clue,” Scott said. “This… is just weird.”

Scott sighed walking into the empty halls of the school trying to think.

“Who the hell is Kallikrates?”

“Maybe… that’s Stiles’s spark name, you know like shifters have spirit names?”

Kira shrugged, “Maybe but why doesn’t it know who you are?”

“More importantly, how can Stiles be dead?”

One of the doors of the opened for them and they walked through it into Stiles’s childhood living room. The door to the basement was blown open singed around the edges as if something had escaped. Something rather large and dangerous by Kira’s guess. They walked to the mouth of the opening and could only see darkness. 

“Any idea what that means?”

“Well… when we were little Stiles was afraid of going into the basement alone,” Scott said. “Something about bad things being in the basement. I thought it was like being afraid of the dark… but maybe…”

“It’s where he put his spark,” they turned to see Elena sitting at the table letting out a breath.

“What?”

Elena looked at them. Sparks, in general, had the ability to compartmentalize their emotions, fears, ideas in the form of constructs. Apparently, the construct that Stiles chose was the structure of his house, the basement was where he put everything that scared him, everything he didn’t want to acknowledge or hurt him. She could guess that it stemmed from Claudia as Claudia’s construct had also been a house.

“This… is far more advanced than I’ve ever seen,” she said.

She knew that Stiles had issues, but when she decided that it would be best to go ahead and try to reset his construct, she hadn’t planned on exactly how deep his trauma  went, how long the construct had been intact. If she tried to reset it by force, she could end up damaging Stiles’s mind, and his spark, beyond repair.

“We usually don’t make constructs like this until we’re older, aware of our spark… it seemed that Stiles’s ignition happened a long time ago or his spark is just stronger than average.”

She should have taken him a long time ago it seemed. This wasn’t going to be an easy fix. Even Stiles’s spark didn’t know it was a spark perhaps, had no idea what was going on shut away for so long…

“We just ran into a Kallikrates?”

“What did he look like?”

“Like Stiles.”

Elena shook her head, “That was just a projection.”

“He apparently killed a three-year-old Stiles? Carved his heart out or something, a glowing red orb?”

“Another projection. Kallikrates is trying to make sense of his actual age… no doubt Derek has met one as well.”

She got up and turned towards the back door of the house. There was no doubt that Derek had met one as well.

“What does that mean?” Scott asked as they caught up with her. “Making sense of his age?”

If Stiles created his construct when he was three years old, based on the age and decorations in the house, then Kallikrates would consider himself to still be three years old. Having had the years of trauma forced in alongside him, Kallikrates would know that he was technically Stiles’s age, but he can’t reconcile the two in the dark. Having broken out, he made projects of the two—the age he felt and the age he actually was, both murdering their counterparts and stealing their life force in a sense—carving himself out of his own constructs of Stiles within Stiles’s construct.

“Sounds like  _ Inception _ .”

Elena snorted, “Something like that except the two constructs are conflicting. We have to find the actual Stiles and the actual Kallikrates.”

“Any idea where to look?”

Elena smirked, “Not a clue.”

_ Great. _

*

Kallikrates had been insistent, insistent enough that he went running away from Derek as the corpse began to move, slow stuttering footsteps getting faster. Derek chased after Kallikrates streaking through the forest and towards a version of Stiles’s old house. Derek frowned. It wasn’t quite right on the inside or the outside, the age of the place was significantly different. Derek went in and glanced towards the basement door blown off its hinges and hanging, burnt and charred before following the path Kallikrates took up the stairs and to the bedroom decorated in a cheerful blue, child-friendly with Batman sheets: Stiles’s bedroom.

“Quick you have to hide!”

He frowned and kneeled looking under the bed where Kallikrates was, “Why under the bed?”

“Mom said it was safest.”

Derek nodded, wiggling to slide beneath the bed with the child and finding that it expanded to fit him as well.

“What are we hiding from Kallikrates?”

“The monster from the basement.”

Derek swallowed, “What… was it that Stiles couldn’t understand?”

He hesitated for a moment before shifting and laying his head on Derek’s arm. He was cold to touch, getting colder like a corpse.

“I can’t be normal,” he said. “I’m a spark. You can’t put sparks in basements with monsters.”

“Why not?”

“Because they turn sparks into monsters and I don’t want to be a monster,” he said. “Besides it’s not very nice.”

Derek nodded, “No… no, it’s not. Do you think Stiles would apologize?”

“No,” he said flatly. “S-Stiles hates me…I… I made Mom cry…”

“You didn’t make her cry, Kallikrates,” Derek said.

“It’s… it’s my fault she’s dead.”

“That’s not true.”

“That’s what Dad thinks… he hates me.”

“He’s wrong.”

Kallikrates looked up at him, a mystic blue glowing where his eyes used to be brown. There was no mistaking it now. Kallikrates was Stiles’s spark, the one that had books in the library floating, absorbing knowledge at an alarming rate.

“Did you know Stiles?”

“Yeah,” Derek said with a twitch of his lips.

“Could you… tell me about him?”

Derek smiled and nodded, pulling the kid close before telling him everything he knew about Stiles, how he’d saved his life on several occasions, how smart and wonderful he was, how they were dating.

“He’s… your mate, isn’t he?”

“I think so,” Derek said.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “He sounds… nice.”

“He is. Perhaps you’ll meet him.”

“He’s dead.”

“He can’t be, you’re still here.”

Kallikrates stiffened and Derek lets out a breath.

“I know you’re frightened,” he said. “I know you don’t want to go back in the basement, but you can’t run from the monsters. It’s just as much your monster as it is his.”

Kallikrates curled into his side, “It … was dark…. So cold…and scary.”

Derek swallowed, rubbing his arms as Kallikrates began crying into his shoulder.

“W-Why would he do that to me?” He hiccupped.

“He was afraid too,” Derek said. “And you know, he probably protected you.”

“Protected me?”

“Stiles was possessed by a Nogitsune.”

Kallikrates froze, “What?”

Derek nodded. From what he understood of the possession and what Stiles told him, the Nogitsune had chosen Stiles because he could sense his spark. The majority of the Nogitsune’s frustrations was its inability to access it, hidden away in a basement of a house that even Stiles had not recollection of. 

“If you hadn’t been in the basement at the time, you would have probably turned into a monster already.”

“That… must have hurt.”

Derek nodded, “The other monsters that he put in there with you were memories, things that he couldn’t deal with.”

“Like me?”

Derek shook his head, “I don’t think Stiles even knows that you were there.”

“He forgot me?” He said stiffly. “But—“

“Stiles didn’t know he could actually be a spark until recently,” Derek said. “Since meeting me actually…”

He frowned in the darkness, “What do you mean?”

“ _ Aq'a gavar aqr`guva il aqr’sa ‘ruard top il|a qual nue δoi nava δal nue δoi nava δil,”  _ Derek recited dutifully.

Kallikrates moved, “ _ Der’aq? _ ”

“Yes.”

The blue flashed brighter as Kallikrates hugged him tightly, “You’re Der’aq? Why didn’t you say so? I didn’t know. I’m sorry. Thank you for everything!”

He chuckled a bit at the sound of Kallikrates babbling, talking so fast that Derek could only listen and hope to catch key phrases. It was like a truly unfiltered Stiles talking about how warm Der’aq was, how nice it was to have someone to talk to while in the basement. How scared he was when Der’aq went away, how scared he was when he was being hurt. Derek assured him that he was perfectly alright.

“You… came here to help me?”

Derek nodded, “To help you both get rid of the monsters.”

“The monsters… were going to hurt you.”

“But you stopped them, you both did,” he said. “I think you could even get rid of them.”

Kallikrates shook his head, “I’m not strong enough.”

“How about together then,” he asked. “I did make a promise to you didn’t I?”

Kallikrates nodded and squeezed his hand, “You—You promise? Together?”

“Nava’il to,” he said and Kallikrates nodded letting Derek slide out from beneath the bed and pull him from beneath as well. 

They walked down the stairs to see the corpse with dark eyes, looking like a memory from his time under the Nogitsune’s control.

_ Let me in, Stiles… _

Kallikrates hid behind Derek and Derek regarded the corpse standing there, not particularly threatening.

“Stiles,” Derek said calmly. “Come here.”

The corpse stutters and the house melt away, the corpse vanished and it’s nothing but a great darkness. Scott, Kira, and Elena are there confused. Kallikrates is still behind Derek, but Stiles sits quietly on the floor, covered in blood. The monsters returned to voices around them.

“I don’t want to be a monster,” Stiles and Kallikrates say together. Kallikrates is screaming into the darkness while Stiles can only whisper it on the ground.

“I’d rather die,” they said.

Derek licked his lips and kneeled, taking Kallikrates’ hand and tugging him forward.

“Kallikrates, this is Stiles.”

He looked at Stiles, “Stiles, this is your spark, Kallikrates.”

Stiles tilted his head up to look at his three-year-old self with glowing red eyes. Kallikrates’s eyes glowed blue looking at him.

“You put me in the basement.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” Stiles said looking at him. “I wasn’t ready.”

“You mean he wasn’t ready.”

Stiles swallowed looking down, “I’m… I’m sorry.”

Derek stepped back to join Elena, Scott, and Kira.

“What’s… happening right now?”

“Stiles is communing with his spark,” Elena said. “With any luck, it’ll go well.”

“What happens if it doesn’t?” Scott asked.

“Then he’ll die.”

The child’s jaw trembled, “I was scared… I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”

“I was scared too,” Stiles said, their eyes meeting. “Forgive me?”

Kallikrates reached out a hand, “I never meant to hurt you.”

Stiles’s lips twitched, “I know. Me either. We’ll… we’ll be okay?”

“It wasn’t our fault,” they said to one another as Stiles took his hand. “It wasn’t…it isn’t… our fault.”

“It isn’t our fault.”

“It isn’t our fault.”

Derek watched Kallikrates get older, slowly growing through Stiles’ years until he was the same age as the Stiles sitting on the ground, his eyes glowing blue and they vanished.

When Derek opened his eyes again, he was on the hospital room floor. Scott and Kira beside him and Elena leaning against the gurney. The room was still in pieces and everyone was unconscious except for Stiles who was awake, eyes glowing a bright purple now, sitting on the gurney and staring out the window.

“Stiles?”

He turned and blinked the glow away until his eyes were brown, “Yeah…”

Derek let out a relieved sigh, getting up to hug him tightly, “I love you.”

Stiles closed his eyes and reached out, wrapping his arms around Derek and letting Kallikrates reach out to Der’aq. It was strange, but the little spark of warmth he used to feel when he was younger was now in every inch of him, filling him up, fizzling beneath his skin with years of locked away power.

Across the room, he could see the ghost of her smiling. Claudia grinned, a hand on her hip and blew him a kiss before turning to walk away, her eyes glowing purple as well. Perhaps… her spark hadn’t just left her body, perhaps she’d left her body too. Perhaps she and her spark hadn’t entered the nexrt world because of him, couldn’t be bound there because of him… perhaps she’d been watching over him all this time.

He didn’t know, but he knew that he had a lot to learn about being a spark and one John Stilinski to talk to.

“Where’s my Dad?”

“I don’t know,” Derek said softly. “I can find him.”

“Please?”

Derek nodded and drew back, pressing a solid kiss to his lips and forehead before leaving the room. It doesn’t take long for everyone else to wake up and check on him, hug him and promise love and affection. Elena squeezed him tight, apologizing for years, apologizing for everything that wasn’t her fault.


	24. It’s All Us. Holding Me, Do No Wrong.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damn it, John...

They lay side by side. Partially too exhausted to move, too exhausted to move away and not really wanting to. Stiles’ arms above his head, Derek’s at his sides. They were close enough to touch but just far enough that there was only the heat radiating from each other.

Derek hated and loved the blue and green plaid shirt Stiles wore when he was working on case files. Today, his undershirt was as green and vibrant as Derek’s clothing was dark, which probably meant that Stiles was working up the courage for something. He’d been cutting his hair again, so there was only a thin layer of dark brown hair to cover the round head of his partner, his mate.

Derek’s eyes slid to the corner to see him, only to find Stiles looking out the corner of his eye to see him too. Their eyes locked for maybe too long of a moment before Stiles spoke.

“So is that hypothetical situation we talked about getting any less hypothetical?”

Derek could have hit himself in the face. He really didn’t want to talk about this at the moment. Only weeks after Stiles had woken up, the Alliance Board, as well as the Lycan Elders, sent them notices that their partnership was under review since Stiles was now officially a spark and Derek was an alpha werewolf. Derek thought it was because they were terrified of how much power the two of them had between them, heaven forbid if they knew how much Stiles’s spark and Derek’s wolf liked one another. 

They wouldn’t be under review, they’d be severed and potentially taken in for study.

“The Alliance rep board wants to see us.”

Stiles felt his jaw stiffened. He knew a brick wall when he felt it and Derek was not one to play with kid gloves when it came to conversations he didn’t want to have. Stiles breathed harshly out of his nose and got up.

“When.”

“Tomorrow 0800.”

“Fine.”

Stiles made it to the kitchen to make something to eat. Derek remained quiet and unmoving even as he could smell the frustration coming from the other, the little bit of lightning fizzling on his tongue from the spike of ambient magic. 

“You’re irritated.”

“Thanks, Captain obvious,” Stiles replied without missing a beat. He continued to fiddle around in the kitchen. 

Derek was going to say something but someone was knocking on the door. At 4 a.m., it could only be an Alliance messenger as they didn’t believe in sleeping. 

Stiles went to the door. 

“Matt?” Stiles asked confused to see the older teen there. 

He would admit that Matt had clearly been interested in him when he was still too young, and too awkward, to realize that, but as Matt took him in there was no denying it now. 

“Stiles…” he said appreciatively. “You’re… looking good. How have you been?”

“Busy...you became an Alliance Messenger?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thought it best not to freak out the parents by applying to be a handler. Didn’t know you got it. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

Derek sat up at the sound of Stiles’s name on “Matt”’s lips. Der’aq was immediately on edge. Someone was flirting with his mate and there was no denying exactly how awkward Stiles was being. He swore the man had not one graceful bone in his body. 

“The alliance board wants to see you and your partner at 0600 to start your partner reviews and tests.”

“They just couldn’t let us have those two hours could they?” Stiles groaned and turned his head. “Derek? D’you hear?”

“Fuckers.”

“Message delivered,” he said turning back. “Thanks, Matt--”

“Hey, any chance you’ll have some time soon? I’d love to catch up.”

“Er… actually, my boyfriend keeps me pretty busy… and there’s the Alliance and well, right now just isn’t a good time.”

“Boyfriend?” Matt asked incredulously.

Derek would have laughed, but it would have been distasteful. Stiles had to learn to say “no” one day. 

“Come on Stiles, you didn’t have to lie.”

“I’m not,” he said. “You have any idea how hard it is to keep up with a lycan sex drive and still be a good Handler? You try it and then we can mutually bond over the lack of hours in a day. I think I’m going to use the next two hours being too tired to give a damn about the Alliance by having said boyfriend plow me into a mattress. Good night.”

He closed the door, locked it back and then Derek laughed. 

He wasn’t sure if he should be angry or not, or maybe he should be relieved that the tension from earlier had dissolved. 

He smiled a bit watching Derek calm himself. 

“You could have just said no.”

He winced, “It was awkward.”

“Der’aq was jealous,” he said. “At least until he started talking.”

Stiles snorted, “Have you seen you? Have you met you? Why on Earth would I give that up for a creep?”

“I think you mentioned something about me plowing you into a mattress?” Derek asked slyly and Stiles flushed.

“Well… if we’re done being… awkward, angry and--”

“Stiles.”

“Yeah?”

“Take off your clothes.”

*

Derek’s arm was around him, most of his weight over him and his lips pressed against his. They would be late, he knew that. They would be late if he’d slept through his alarm like he was sure he did, but he didn’t care. Derek was warm and growling low in his chest, pulling him towards him, on top of him and he could already feel the hardness growing between his legs. Stiles didn’t let him pull him all the way, but caught his leverage with one knee and flipped them over, earning a satisfied growl from Derek as Stiles slid his tongue between his lips and licked against the roof of his mouth, just a feather light caress that made Derek crazy.

They’d been kept apart for “observation” for a whole week during their “partner review”. They weren’t sure what exactly they were looking for, but whatever it was they didn’t find it. Team Nogitsune wasn’t going to be broken up anytime soon and just in time for his father’s farewell party. 

“We’re going to be--”

“Not if you shut up,” Derek teased, pulling his lips back to his.

His chain dangling delicately between them, the Handler’s marker reaching towards Derek’s neck as Stiles shift his weight a bit and stiffened his neck for an almost needy kiss. 

When Derek tugged his pants off, and they hadn’t even glanced at the bathroom, Stiles knew, for sure that they were going to be late. He could only hope that the Police Station was as late to start things as they always were. 

About two hours later, a half an hour after they were supposed to be there, Stiles and Derek are in the jeep under the cool evening blue lights, waiting at a stop sign when his phone rings. 

Surprise, surprise it’s someone at the party that was checking to see where he was and completely out of the loop about the fact that Derek had found John while Stiles was in the hospital, but the man was so drunk that he wouldn’t be moved. 

He hadn’t talked to his father since he’d gotten out and was more or less dreading the entire affair the more the reality of it sunk in.

“Look,” he says glancing in Derek’s direction. 

He’s never seen the passenger seat look so full and he’s never felt so crowded in the jeep with anyone. More importantly, Derek is watching him. He isn’t sure what for but he knows that Derek has learned some of the nuances of Stiles’s body chemistry to know when he’s stressed out. He bet Der’aq is itching to nudge Kallikrates and get all of his dirty secrets. They were entirely too good of friends at the moment for Stiles’s taste.

“If you just…. If you see my dad, can you tell him… Tell him I’ll be there. I'll just --just be a little late, okay?”

There’s a pause in which Derek can clearly hear Stiles swallow, the clenching of his throat muscles the way they do when he’s stressed.

“Alright, thanks.”

He hands up and Derek continues to watch him, observing him but Stiles can’t be bothered to cloak the truth right now, there are bigger things going bump in the night than his Dad’s retirement dinner and the inevitable comparison that they’re going to put him through.  _ When your father was in the service… _

“You’re not gonna make it.”

He looks forward, “I know.”

_ Thanks, Captain Obvious. _

“And you don’t want to.”

Stiles lets out a grunt before the light turned green and the Jeep moved forward. With any luck, they’ll get called to do rounds or something equaly as ridiculous and miss the party entirely with a valid excuse. He wanted to at least have to leave early enough to say “Hi”, let people laugh at him, avoid his father, say something completely out of turn and run away before he makes anything any worse.

In accordance with his luck, there was a call, but it couldn’t have been something cleaner… No, a distress call from a couple in a less than sanitary alley while she was clearly going into labor. Stiles got blood all over his clothes while trying to help deliver the baby and helping Derek fight off a rabid vampyr he was sure was after the baby. Derek and the father had their hands full with it.

They’d gotten the baby delivered safely and in the woman’s arms so Stiles was finally free to help subdue it with a pair of magic restraints. They managed to rush to the nearest department store to clean Stiles up and for them both to buy something to change into that looked remotely presentable. He found something that looked spiffy enough: a white pinstripe shirt, a tie, blazer, black jeans and black shoes that were comfortable but looked important enough. He looked just shy of suit wearing. Derek, the bastard, looked damn good in pretty much anything but the t-shirt and blazer combination was making it incredibly hard to concentrate on getting his keys into the ignition and getting them the rest of the way there.

When they arrived, his father was on the podium, in the middle of his speech it seemed and he shook his head, hoping that his father wouldn’t notice that he hadn’t been on time, hoping that he man wouldn’t talk to him because he just wasn’t sure if all of him was okay with trying to have an adult conversation with the man. 

The swanky affair lasts for as long as it’s going to and it isn’t until he’s been put on “Haul the Ex-Sherriff To A Car, He’s Falling Asleep” Duty that another call comes in. 

Instead of putting John in the Jeep, he calls a cab and prays that he’s too drunk or too tired, too something to speak. 

It seemed that Stiles was completely out of luck because no sooner were they in the parking garage, John was pulling away from him and stumbling to sit on the steps. 

“After all these years,” he started solemnly. “The fucking counsel chooses now to show their colors.”

Stiles eyed him warily.

“You know that this is because of you, don’t you?”

His mouth opened in shock, stupefied, apprehensive…

Yeah, just shocked.

“Whatever you and Derek have… It’s scared the hell out of them… Just like Claudia had. He sighed hanging his head.

“Jesus, Stiles, you weren’t supposed--”

“Shut up,” he said and John looked at him shocked. He’s expecting anger, but all he can see is tears and pained brown eyes looking at him.

“I’ve been called in. Wait for your cab.”

He turned then and marched back to his Jeep where Derek was watching the interaction. 

“Stiles--”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Derek nodded in understanding and rounded the car, “I’ll drive.”

Stiles didn’t argue, opening the passenger seat, knowing that if he got behind the wheel, there was no guarantee where the Jeep would take them if it would get much farther than the parking lot. They ride past John who watched them go and finds that he can’t even muster up the sense to call out to him, to get up, to apologize. He just watched him go thinking that Stiles… looked just like Claudia. 

Especially when they cried.


	25. My Heart Won’t Beat Again. Flutter Your Heart.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's never just that easy... 
> 
> or
> 
> Why is he always waking up in the hospital?

It’s the sound the EKG that tells Stiles that he wasn’t dead. Heaven didn’t sound like a hospital and neither did hell, he’d gotten enough of a sense of both of them to know by now. The question was really… why? 

Why was he in the hospital?

Something in him was running wild, boiling with rage. The place where he felt his Spark nowadays was on fire with anger screaming, but he couldn’t make out the words. When he opened his eyes, Liam was sitting beside his bed looking at him and he swallowed. 

“Hello Stiles,” he greeted solemnly. He looked around seeing Scott on his other side with Kira. 

“What…” he said. “What happened--”

The world went too loud for a moment before the images started, a sinking feeling in his gut. There was pain, an indescribable pain and howling, scratching, claws tearing through him, harsh and angry. 

“ _Stiles! Stiles!_ _Stiles look at me!_ ”

Derek’s face red eyes, wet and desperate, a collar around his neck, his wrists, getting farther away. Screaming for him until he was shut away. The sound of tires, blood… sticky on his hands… 

His blood?

“Where is Derek?” Stiles asked and Liam lets out a breath while shaking his head.

“We… we don’t know,” Liam said. “We found you… bleeding out, damn near dead almost a week ago.”

“A week?” Stiles yelled and instantly regretted it, cringing at the pain and trying to breathe through it. Why wasn’t he healing?

If there was anything he should have been doing it should have been healing. Der’aq wouldn’t have let his injuries stay that bad and Kallikrates sure as hell wouldn’t have. What the hell was happening?

“Whoever attacked you was...prepared for you being a Spark,” Liam said. “Prepared for Derek too. Your grandmother was out of town on Spark business. She should be here soon to help get the spell off you.”

His eyes narrowed, “They… They meant to kill me.”

Liam nodded, “Yes,--”

“No,” Stiles corrected, Kallikrates showed him something else, a flash of a vision. 

A blonde woman looking down at him and the sound of terrified screaming. 

“ _ He’s dead and no one’s going to find you. Have you missed me? _ ”

“They… meant to make Derek know I was dead.”

Liam’s eyes narrowed and Stiles sat up, groaning and struggling, probably making his injuries worse. 

“They cut us off,” Stiles said, forcing his memories to resurface and expose themselves. 

The car that had rammed into the Jeep and toppled them over. They’d gotten out of the car before they’d Molotov cocktailed the Jeep, Derek dragging a dazed Stiles out. They’d come so fast that they couldn’t have been anything but lycans… Ten, twenty of them swarming all at once, overpowering them both. Teeth and claws and brutality tearing through him. He heard himself screaming and Derek crying out in pain. 

Just a glimpse of the way they’d gotten him to the ground, the collar on his neck and bright red eyes looking at the bloody heap they’d made of Stiles. 

“ _ Stiles! _ ”

“They took him,” Stiles said. “I have to find him.”

“He’s been missing for a week,” Liam said. “And the Lycan Council is convinced that he’s merely gone rogue.”

“Bullshit,” Stiles said, “They know something.”

Liam snorted, “As much as I agree with you, it is not an accusation we can make without proof.”

Stiles licked his lips and sat up, struggling, hissing at the pain before swinging his legs over the side. 

“You’re in no position to do anything.”

“There’s a blonde woman,” Stiles said. “She asked… she asked Derek if he’d missed her.”

Liam’s eyes widened for a moment and stood up, “Stay here.”

Stiles didn’t move, trying to get a grip through the pain as Liam left. He returned soon after with a tablet and pulled up a picture. 

“This woman?”

Stiles looked at her and nodded, “That’s her.”

“Kate Argent.”

The windows shattered behind him, exploding out with the shockwave of power. Liam looked grim and Stiles's eyes only glowed a bloody red. 

Kate Argent...

Fucking Kate Argent...

“How’s that for proof?”

*

It takes four hours to get the spell off of Stiles and another two for his spark to heal him completely, then he’s up and calling Scott, pulling records and trying to force the connection to give him something more than what he had. 

It pisses him off, even more, when he hits the dead wall where their connection used to be. IT seemed that whatever they were doing to Derek was making him shut down. He was running out of time.

The Lycan Elders were all hush-hush and indisposed, but Stiles had a feeling that it was more than just wanting to waste time. They had Derek. 

The only question was  _ where _ and to what end?

“Stiles,” Scott tried seeing him pouring over old tomes in the new Hale house. “Perhaps you should--”

“Oh, Gods…”

Scott stiffened, “What?”

Stiles shook his head, “That’s not… That’s…”

Stiles swallowed, there was no other explanation. To be planning something of this magnitude, a ritual of this magnitude, they'd need space and magic that had been untamed, free-floating and not necessarily--

“What?” Scott urged as Liam came around the corner.

“The front lines…”

Scott frowned and Stiles turned to him. “The  _ front  _ lines, Scott. When’s the last time anyone outside the Lycan Council did anything related to the front lines?”

“Well… never.”

“That’s because there’s no such thing,” Stiles said. “There’s just quarantined space… Quarantined, magic-drenched space…”

Scott was going to ask what he was talking about, but Stiles was up then, rushing around him and snagging someone to drive him to the Stilinski house. 

“Meet me at the edge of the city in twenty minutes!”

It’s Liam who drives him there, leaving the car running while Stiles runs into the house and up the stairs. He hopes that it won’t be the last time. After all, he and John still hadn’t spoken really... 

He shoved that thought away, there were other things in his future right now to worry about. He didn’t think he would ever have to do this, but he needed it. He needed to own the hell up and accept who he was if he was going to save Derek. So he opened the door to his old bedroom and went to the safe beneath his bed. His mother had put it there for his spark gun when they weren’t training. He’d placed her gun there and never saw it again when she died, but now he needed it because he couldn’t go in half cocked, half-armed, half anything really.

He placed his hand on the lock and breathed, thinking of the smell of pierogis, pizza, and blackberry ice cream, until his sense were filled with it and the lock clicked open.

His throat burns as he opens the safe and pulls out the case. It’s carved with ancient runes and all sorts of enchantments, but it recognizes him, glows, and opens to reveal the gleaming gun, still as beautiful as the last day his mother had held it.

He’d wondered often if the turnabout would have been the same if she’d been carrying both guns the way she was supposed to, but right now wasn’t the time to think of those things. When the gun is in his hand, he feels the surge, it searching him, probing him and then settling, harmonizing with his other gun as he slides it into its holster and breathes.

He’s ready.

He heads out and stops when John appears in the hallway. He can’t remember the last time that he’d seen the man in the middle of everything…

“Stiles,” he started looking at him and then to guns in his holster. “Are you… really…?”

He shook his head and lifted his chin, “What do you need?”

Stiles regarded him, confused for a moment, but he understood an olive branch when he saw it. A part of him wanted to take it and smack John around with it, but perhaps Stiles really had grown up over the last few years because he licked his lips and stepped forward to embrace his Dad for the first time in a long time. 

“I love you,” he said softly, swallowing before pulling back. John is out of breath, out of his mind because he’s not fully conscious when Stiles lets him go and walks out the front door. He’s not sure what that means, he’s not sure of anything but the fact that Claudia….

Claudia had done the same thing the night she was killed…

She’d just hugged him and told him that she loved him. 

He sunk in the hallway, his eyes burning with the realization that Stiles knew he wouldn’t be coming back from wherever he was going. 

He shook his head and stood up, rushing to his own bedroom where he kept his rifle and loaded the few rounds, taking the extra with him and grabbing his jacket to run after Stiles. He was already gone it seemed someone honked across the street at him. 

“Need a ride?”

He looked to see Elena in the car and looked at her warily. 

“Get in or I’ll leave you here.”

He didn’t argue but got in the back seat as the passenger seat was already taken. 

*

It’s a sound so familiar, he knows. A feeling so familiar, yet… yet he can’t care. 

The vision of Stiles bleeding out, his brown eyes glossing over with death there behind his eyelids. Der’aq thrashing around inside him, angry, in so much pain, that it’s just his body screaming at every shock, every cut, every whip. His mind is elsewhere, far away, holding the bloody corpse of Stiles in his arms maybe, wishing that he really had burned to death in the Hale Fire if it was going to do this to him… If living was going to hurt so much more.

“Derek?” he looked up at the voice, seeing Stiles there, his heart lifting only to scream as his head exploded everywhere, his heart crashing like some horrible roller coaster. 

Kate watched from across the room, comfortable and amused, listening to Derek’s roaring, his eyes glowing red and blue flickering in the room, wounds closing as fast as they opened. 

“Is he ready?” A cloaked figure asked from behind her.

“I’ll let you make that call,” she said as he roared and thrashed again. 

She guessed that it wasn’t just Stiles dying over and over again behind his eyelids as he whimpered and sobbed. It seemed that he’d grown stronger since the last time she’d broken him, his mind hardened maybe but Derek’s weakness was always his family, his loved ones. 

The man turned away, “I will alert the Elders.”

She snorted as if she cared. As soon as this little plan of theirs for a “Lycan Homeland” fizzled out, the Hunters would have to mobilize and then it would be back to business as usual. 

She turned and closed the door behind her, letting the hallucinogen do the rest of the work and went whistling down the hallway. 

*

“It is time,” the cloaked man announced to the room. “The Argent Woman has done as she promised.”

“Good,” a voice spoke. “And what of this Stiles?”

“If he isn’t dead, he’ll be in critical condition for quite some time.”

“Good, we will begin tonight.”

*

“And so…” Scott asked as soon as he climbed into the car and Liam drove. “I’m not understanding.”

Stiles shook his head, “You and history never got along. I am telling you that this isn’t coincidence.”

Though lycans had never really had a state, those of the lycan elders were painfully jingoist. They pledged their allegiance to the welfare of shifter and supernatural kind, but lycans foremost. The thought of having a lycan state had been as much of a dream for them as a homeland had been for Jewish people. In the Book of Ravi, sometime before people realized that putting such things into books could cause serious issues later, it was promised that eventually, according to a few specific signs that Ravi would return to the Earth and make shifters, more importantly lycans, rulers over all. 

“Seriously?”

“Seriously, turn left.”

Stiles looked at the map and closed his eyes, trying to force his way through the cracks of the enchantment over Derek to find him. There’s nothing but a thick wall that he can hear and see bits and pieces through. For a moment, he sees Kira there in front of him, bleeding and skewered through. Scott’s body on the ground and he can hear Derek screaming.

“What?” Scott asked,  breaking him out of the trance. “What did you see?”

“They’re trying to break him,” Stiles said thickly and closed his eyes again, taking Scott’s hand and forcing it again. He needed something. 

Something more than the illusions, something anything a direction… a scent…

Somewhere in between the screaming, there’s a moment, just one that Stiles smells something like…

Like…

Gasoline?

He feels sick with pain as it washes over him, another surge of electricity through him, but he smells it. 

They wouldn’t be playing with electricity in a room with gasoline, that would have ruined everything…

They had to be… somewhere that it was refined, somewhere where a lot of people died, abandoned, in the unmonitored spaces between Alliance and Non-Alliance territories. 

“An oil refinery,” Stiles said dazed as Scott cursed, trying to staunch the random wounds that had appeared and were slowly stitching themselves together. 

“Oil… refinery…” he said again to Liam. 

Liam nodded and turned down the old highway. There was only one oil refinery left in any sort of condition to be used for anything. It had been condemned because of the magic in the area, not because of any accident like the others. It was so old that hardly anyone knew about it, but Liam knew as so many people had been left to die there… 

So many shifters. 

When Liam stopped the car, Stiles stepped out along with Scott and headed the direction they needed to go. Stiles worried his lip. 

“I… I can hear him,” Scott said. “And… other people…”

Liam swallowed thickly, “What happens if we can’t snap Derek out of it?”

Stiles swallowed, “Leave… Leave that to me.”

*

Kate listened amused, more than anything, to the sound of their chanting, the circle of shifters all strung up in a pretty circle, eyes glowing and out of their minds as they chanted and summoned whatever they were trying to summon. She heard footsteps coming closer and before she could turn, claws tore straight through her throat. 

“You’ve served your purpose,  _ Argent. _ ”

She choked, eyes narrowing and reached for him, but he shoved her hard enough to flip her over the railing and down into the pit they’re dug out for this particular ceremony. 

_ Lycan homeland? _ He snorted. Lycans didn’t need a homeland. They needed  _ power _ . They would have it at last and claim their rightful place in the hierarchy, shifters all would claim their rightful place on top of the backs of humans. 

His head turned at the sound of gunshots. 

“Continue,” he said. “I will handle it.”

He walked calmly down the old metal rigging scenting the people who’d come. Two lycans, and… something else, a human and several other unidentifiable people. 

“Where’s my daughter?”

He would have groaned, but instead, he decided the best course of action was just to add a little more Hunter blood to the altar. 

“Kill them,” he said and before any of the Hunters in assembly could manage to get their guns out, their weapons that had so plagued the shifter race for centuries, they were torn to pieces. 

A gunshot was fired, ghosting by him and he looked up to the man at the top of the rigging. One Hunter who’d fallen back. 

Like cockroaches, it seemed, at least one of them survived most things. 

“Him too.”

He turned then ignoring the screams to see about the intrusion when a burst of magic exploded through his chest, slamming him back and he saw him…

“You… you’re… “

“Where’s Derek?” Stiles asked, eyes glowing red and angry, his voice edged with a power more ancient than the shifter race. 

A spark…

A spark…

“I’ll tell you where he is…”

Stiles turned to the wheezing voice not too far away, stuck to the wall, skewered through to the wall. From the look of him, he wasn’t a part of the resistance, wasn’t even really a part of anything, but dying. There was something familiar about his features, something reminiscent of Liam but he couldn't know for sure...

“They’ve got everyone strung up in rooms… one of each down in the pit,” he said looking at Stiles. 

“How many? What for?” Stiles asked moving towards him to figure out if there was time to save the man. 

“Don’t bother kid,” he chuckled. “I’m good as dead...What’s… your name?”

“Stiles.”

He hummed, “The… _Derek_ … right… he’s… at… the top.”

Stiles swallowed, “We can get you--”

“Let me be with them,” he pleaded. “I’m… I’m so tired.”

Stiles swallowed and nodded, “O-Okay…”

Liam looked on, moving to turn down the hall as the man held on to Stiles’s arm.

“He’s… he’s not going to be y-your Derek when you get there… They...they did things that… almost no one could come back from.”

“How do I get him out of it?”

He chuckled, “You… you love him?”

Stiles flushed, “Yes…”

He snorted, “ Even somebody as burned and dead on the inside as me knows better than to underestimate the simple and undeniable of human love…”

Stiles stammered, wanting to know what the hell that meant, but the man fell still, a peaceful smile on his face and Stiles felt his spirit leave his body, running home to the embrace and company of those who’d gone before… How long had he been here, waiting for death? How long had it been since he’d felt that love?

Stiles took in a shuddering breath and looked towards the stairs and went up, trying to feel where Derek could be, trying to hear him through the screaming from below and the chanting. 

In his experience, there were only certain kinds of spells that required specific arrangements and the lynchpin was always at the center… If they’d made a pit on one of the lower levels, then the actual center would be above…

Derek was the lynchpin and so long as he was right where they needed him to be, their little ritual would go over just fine.

The stairs shook, a great roar coming from above, from below and seemingly everywhere. A strong wind that carried Stiles off the stairs and thrashed him around as he held on to the railings. 

_ Derek… _

Through the open rigging, red light spilled and joining the light of the others, red, blue, yellow…

The earth shook, the rigging whined with the strain and then it stopped. 

The light snapped, the roaring stopped and he could hear the sound of torn metal. 

_ Derek had escaped. _


	26. Don’t Need To Try. Feel It Every Day.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering who the guy was, it was Peter.

Stiles hauled himself back onto the stairs and up them drawing ever closer to the sound of bodies being ripped apart, metal being dented, lives being lost. Stiles rounded the corner as another body was thrown into the hallway. He swallowed and moved forward to look down the hallway. 

Stiles can see him, prowling through the darkness, down the hall. His eyes are glowing, fangs bared, snarling at him. They’re maddened, unwelcoming and Stiles grips both of them in his hands, thinking of the millions of spells to subdue him, all powerful, all perfect. All easy to cast as Derek runs down the hallway towards him… despite that he finds himself lowering his guns...

He thought of the words and prayed that the man was right. 

_ Even somebody as burned and dead on the inside as me knows better than to underestimate the simple and undeniable power of human love… _

So Stiles placed his guns in their holsters and takes a deep breath, priming his body to move, to dodge but not attack and face Derek’s form running towards him. 

The words on human love burning in the back of his mind, meeting his eyes as Derek lunges at him and he moves, stepping just out of the attempts. They’re stuttered, trembling. He’s bleeding, but can’t heal. Stiles can hear Der’aq whining, painful… he’s dying, withering away to the spirit world and Derek can’t think of anything but survival now.

“Derek, it’s me,” he said, stepping around a lunge. ““ _ A’pella, Der’aq. _ ”

The slash is slow and slower, the eyes are still blank, unknowing, lost in a madness that is almost impenetrable when he throws his body forward, knocking Stiles onto his back and rears up ready to claw Stiles to pieces with the last of his strength.

“ _ Derek _ .”

His body jerks and seizes into stillness. No doubt Stiles’s scent is finally hitting him beyond the gunpowder and magic, fear and anger. It’s Stiles. It’s Stiles and while he smells like gunpowder, he doesn’t smell like blood or death or…

“St…” Derek starts, his claws twitching.”Sti…”

Stiles watches him as the eyes waver, the claws begin to retract.

“Stil…”

“Stiles…” He breathes, his fangs retract, his eyes dim to their normal hazel and he looks down at Stiles in horror. Eyes flickering trying to find a source of injury because he smells blood but ...

“I’m alright,” he said gently, tugging at Derek’s arms to pull him up against him. He bares his neck for him to bury his face in, wraps his arms around Derek’s neck and shoulders, a hand in his hair, petting the silky strands, and soothing him.

“Shh…” he said gently. “Everything is okay.”

“Sti-Stiles…”

“I’m here… It’s all okay now.”

“Sti-Stiles…” It’s a broken sob against his neck and Stiles can feel the tears, the tremors of his body. He’s so scared, Der’aq is scared, Derek is scared, and all Stiles can do is hold him, reaching with his spark to stroke and soothe Der’aq, to search for other injuries.

He finds none and continues to whisper into Derek’s hair that he’s there, he’s safe and everything is okay now. The words are half lycan and half blabbering, but it works because even though Derek is sobbing, he’s relaxing, trembling in Stiles’s arms. 

No one’s sure how long they stay that way, but when Derek says his name, conscious, aware, Stiles smiles sadly.

“Yeah,” he whispers. “I’m here.”

He whines in his chest and shakes, nuzzling him, more Der’aq than Derek at the moment, both clinging to Stiles to steady themselves and cling to the feel of Stiles there.

_ Scared,  _ Der’aq tells him, brushing up against Stiles’s spark.  _ Cold. Away. _

“It’s okay,” Stiles replies. “Everything is alright.”

Stiles can’t help but think that maybe if someone had been there to hold him after the fire, after Kate, after Jennifer that maybe Derek wouldn’t have turned out the way he did.

Stiles manages a single, gentle kiss to Derek’s forehead before coaxing him up and onto his feet. His skin regains color, the wounds have healed and it seemed that their connection is reforging the longer that Stiles holds his hand.

“Let’s…go home?”

Derek nodded and let Stiles lead him down the hallway until the ground shakes again. Stiles sighed. It was like the problem that never went away! He moved to look down the rigging towards the pit and cursed.

“Fucking idiots!” Stiles cursed turning, keeping hold of Derek’s hand and rushing down the steps towards where one of the council members stood laughing, looking down into the vortex he’d opened.

“Stop you, idiot!”

“What’s going on?” Derek asked looking at Stiles.

“They’re summoning a demon,” Stiles said. “They think it’s Fenrir, it’s not. Shit.”

Derek looked at him and then the vortex, still dazed and clinging to Stiles’s hand who only takes aim with his other hand and fires cancelling spells.  They rush over and break, shattering into shards of light before fading.

“I need to be closer,” Stiles said. “One isn’t going to work.”

Derek licked his lips and let go of his hand, Stiles looked at him, his eyes glowing red, “Let’s go.”

Stiles nodded, “Will you be—”

“When we go home.”

Stiles nodded and they headed down the scaffold, Derek leaping down leaving Stiles able to wield both guns and follow down behind him until the reached the ground floor. Derek smelled the darkness and tar. Stiles could hear the Nogitsune’s laughter. A great black figure began to rise from the vortex, the wind whipped as Stiles took aim first for the idiot chanting.

He laughed as Stiles missed, a great black arm snatching him from the deck and holding him aloft.

“You see! Ravi wants—”

The hand pulled him down beneath the darkness and Stiles could have laughed. Ravi wanted no part in this. 

The door to the left exploded open.

“Get back!”

“Fire!”

Gunshots came pouring from the opening and Stiles cast up a barrier between them and the gunfire as the bullets went into the dark mass but did not return, nor hinder its growth. The black mass slowly taking form to reach out and snare another body for the depths of the underworld.

“Get back!” Stiles yelled again.

A spell came down from above, pressing down on the mass before breaking.  Stiles looked up to see Elena and his father.

Stiles took the time to cast another barrier between the force who had arrived and the pit they stood in. The sound of chanting rose again and Stiles could have screamed at their stupidity.

“Derek?”

He growled, fangs and claws out looking down into the pit as Stiles aimed and swallowed, closing his eyes and summoning the right spell from his memory. He felt it grow, expanding and taking shape before them, growing to encircle the black mass in a large glowing net. He breathed slowly, waiting until the right moment, until he could see the spell’s anchor in the underworld, midnight descended and lightning struck down over him as he pulled the trigger. The shock being more than just dangerous as Derek threw up his arms to protect his face from the lightning, but raw power.

It happened so quickly that he didn’t even have a chance to register it before his strength gave out. The anchor had locked and pulled the net and the edges of the vortex together and closed as if nothing had happened.

“Stiles?” Derek asked kneeling beside him.

“I’m… fine…” Stiles said forcing himself back onto his feet to turn and stow a gun away. “Lycan… Elder… assholes.”

Derek nodded and the barrier broke letting the rest of the forces spill in as Stiles and Derek went after the nearest one and everyone else scattered to catch the others.

Stiles shot an illusion forward, making the man stumble through shadow. There’s just enough light to illuminate the facets of the gun aimed straight ahead and aids the glow of Derek’s red eyes in the dimness makes it impossible not to see them… See them everywhere, reflected and echoing through the hundreds mirrors surrounding him.

“You’re under arrest,” Stiles said calmly.

The man turned eyes glowing, claws out and Stiles fired, a solid wolfsbane bullet in his shoulder and Derek looked at Stiles, shocked.

“Kallikrates is still pissed off,” Stiles said in explanation before walking towards the man writhing on the ground and cuffing him. “Be glad it’s just wolfsbane and it wasn’t your face.”

The man went silent, passing out from the pain and Stiles took an odd pleasure in dragging the man’s body out to where the rest of the Alliance agents were congregating to lean over, his hands on his knees and pant for sanity. The world swooned around him and it was clear that whatever that lightning was, wasn't actually a part of the Stiles's plan. 

Elena came down shocked, seeing the residual energy around Stiles, still trying to settle, still reforming Stiles's previously human body to integrate his Spark fully. 

How he was still standing, she had no idea. Then again, when Claudia had ignited on a normal dawn, she'd been going through her normal routine, getting Stiles ready for school before she blew out the generators at the Alliance Office just trying to open the door. Somehow, Stiles being born at midnight and being the son of Claudia meant that his ignition reaction would be just as non-standard as hers had been.

“What the hell was that, Agent Stilinski?”

Stiles held up a hand, “Demon summoning, lightning strike, crazy people…. Questions for tomorrow please.”

The woman shut her mouth and nodded towards the pair. Stiles knew he was being manhandled somewhere, but he wasn’t sure where. Only that Derek was beside him and then they were sitting together… in a car it felt like.

“Don’t let me… go to sleep.”

Derek didn’t hear him, already unconscious, holding him tight enough to be assured that he was alive. Stiles passed out in his lap, his guns in his holsters, his marker and his mother’s around his neck and exhausted.

That was how John and Elena found them when the Agent who was leading the backup had dismissed them. Elena only smiled and told John to take them to the Hale Estate, someone would get them into Derek’s cottage and they’d talk again when everyone involved was a little more stable.

Liam took front in getting the kidnapped shifters medical attention and ironing out the details of what the hell happened . In the end, nothing is resolved that night, a lot of people are arrested, hospitalized, and sent to the morgue.

Stiles and Derek were carried out of the car by several members of the Hale Family, up the stairs to Derek’s bed, settled together just as they were and left alone.

“We’ll ask in the morning,” Adam said, humorously.


	27. What Makes A Man Perfect In Every Way?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're alive.  
> We're alive.  
> We're alive.  
> We're alive.

The world is fuzzy, but he’s sure that the fuzzy face above him is Derek’s. The lighting over Derek’s face was so different that everyone else in his life that he couldn’t mistake it. Scott’s face was somewhere in between masculine young man and baby-faced teenager, but Derek had all the masculine planes and scruff that Stiles had prayed to achieve before he got out of high school. As he was still a hairless twink, obviously that didn’t happen.

What’s even more undeniable is the sound of his phone ringing… and exactly how hungry he was. He opened his eyes slowly, looking at Derek whose eyes weren’t glowing, but so intense that they may have well been. Dirty with blood and dirt, bare-chested leaning over him and watching him intently.

“Derek?”

His scruffy jaw trembled and he scooped Stiles up to press against his chest, trembling, breathing him in.

“St-Stiles…”

He groaned and managed to slip his hands around Derek’s waist and squeeze.

“How about… a bath?”

Derek nodded, not letting him go but carrying him towards the bathroom. He takes the time to strip Stiles down to nothing and step out his own tattered pants before getting them both into the bathtub. Stiles dozed against him and lets Derek clean him up. He feels a tad lazy but he can’t seem to make himself move.

They stay in the water until it gets cold, simply leaning against one another, content and a terrified out of their minds. 

“Derek?”

He whimpered in response, pulling him closer and stiles closed his mouth, focusing a little of his power to heat the water gently around them so they wouldn’t get sick. Derek rumbled at the feeling, Stiles’s magic eddying around him and kissed his shoulder with a groan. 

“ _ You taste like lightning… _ ” he said and unfortunately, no matter how tied Stiles was, he was still a hormonal young adult.

He flushed, got hard and started fidgeting with need. Derek didn’t even blink, happy to lift him up and slide into easily, still pressing him close while Stiles tried to unscramble his brain from the sudden fullness. 

Somewhere in Derek’s cottage, Stiles’s phone is ringing, but they don’t leave the tub. Stiles keeping the water warm around them, Derek turned on by the feel of it and stroking up into Stiles with a measure patience while they clung to one another. 

If Kallikrates and Der’aq are whispering sweet nothings through their skin, Derek and Stiles aren’t conscious of it. 

At least until the water exploded and the shockwave burned out all of the lightbulbs…

Again.

*

“They must be at it again,” Adam said stabilizing a toddler who shrieked with glee as the earth shook beneath them. 

“Eventually,” Brooke started, “They’ll be well settled in the fact that they’re both alive and everything is okay...Until then… perhaps we should look into getting bigger magic capacitors.”

Adam snorted and nodded, lifting the toddler into his arms while the earth shook. 

It had been a week since Derek had been rescued and no one had seen either of them in all that time. 

Scott, Kira, and several other Alliance agents had come by to try and check on them, but they couldn’t even manage to get close with the lightning that seemed to encase the cottage. On the bright side, they always brought news of what was going on with the Alliance and the clean up of the aftermath. 

Today, it seemed that John was the topic of discussion as they were giving him his job back. 

“Yeah, apparently the Sheriff they installed was implicated in several disappearances of lycans over the last few months.”

Scott shook his head, “Crazy.”

Liam was running what was left of the Lycan Elders through interrogation and revising policies. He’d already had a full disclosure go through about the front lines and so much more. 

If Scott wasn’t mistaken, he would probably be going after the research facility in Texas before the end of the month. 

“Still no sign of them?” Kira asked. 

Brooke and Adam shook their heads. 

“Well, they better hurry up and get their fill, there are medals of honor to receive!”

When Stiles and Derek resurface three weeks later, Scott told them this and they’re both so stupidly aglow with magic and sex that they don’t understand what he’s talking about.

“Medals? Honor? Ringing any bells?”

Stiles looked at him as did Derek with their matching glowing red eyes.

“Do I have to wear a suit?”

“Yes.”

Stiles groaned, “I don’t want it.”


	28. That's How He's Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiny medals, shiny powers and well... Things turned out pretty damn well

Stiles did his best to receive his accolades with a straight face, but quite honestly, it was impossible to do with Derek sending him rather raunchy images of what he planned on doing to him tonight as soon as it was polite enough to escape. 

He swears the man is doing it on purpose because he knows that Stiles blushes a brilliant red on any day. 

The small tilt to Derek’s lips as they stand beside one another on the podium is enough to tell him that  _ yes _ he was doing it on purpose. Stiles swallowed, wanting to glare, but decided that he would be a little more vindictive. 

If Derek wanted to play, then he’d play. 

Elena sat in the audience, shaking her head with several other spark elders wishing that Stiles didn’t use his new found control and harmony with his spark for things such as turning his boyfriend into a rigid frame of desire. 

But truly, how could she expect anything else from her grandson? 

When the head of the Alliance began to distribute medals and continue to announce several reforms to the current system, spearheaded by Liam and several others, there’s a moment which she could see Claudia standing at the edge of the podium, shaking her head with a soft smile as Stiles and Derek continued their sex war in public.

Derek leaned over covertly, “You’re going to pay for that.”

“Turnabout is fair play,” Stiles replied absently.

“We’ll see about that.”

It seems to take another hour before the man is finally satisfied with the address to let them all go. Stiles is snagged by Elena, Derek by Liam in the hopes to talk with them before they disappear for another few days. 

“Just remember to eat, drink water and sleep at some point,” Elena said with a knowing smile. “Also remember to tell Derek that as well.”

Stiles nodded and walked away from the assembly. Derek leaned against the Camaro since the Jeep was still in the shop and grinned wolfishly. 

“I was thinking…” Derek started.

“Yeah?” Stiles asked opening the passenger door. 

“What kind of rope would it take to keep you bound to a bed?”   
Stiles’s jaw dropped and Derek grinned at him. 

“Okay,” Stiles said. “I am man enough to admit to defeat.”

“Stiles,” he said. 

“Y-Yeah.”

“I wasn’t kidding.”

Stiles licked his lips and met his eyes, “I know…”

Derek waited and Stiles regarded him, “Mistletoe.”

Derek nodded, “We’ll stop off at the shop you like then.”

Stiles swallowed and got into the car finding it hard to say anything when Derek’s hand squeezed his own.

“When you’re ready, of course.”

Stiles squeezed back, “You’re perfect, you know?”

Derek flushed and Stiles punched the air with victory in his mind and grinned. 

“I think… your praise kink is showing.”

Derek glowered at him, “I will blindfold you.”

Stiles worried his lips and Derek could only growl before cranking up the car and pulling out of the spot. 

The little, perfect, spastic twink with a brain that moved too fast for his body to stop would be the death of him… Somehow, he wouldn’t have it any other way. 


End file.
